November 2020

IHS TATTLER NOVEMBER 2020 | VOL. 128 | NO. 3

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EDITORIAL

Me And My Illicit Lover (My Screen)

BY THE TATTLER EDITORIAL BOARD

I

stare into the glowing window of my laptop. My eyes now strain to read every word on the screen. The endless queue of tabs I have open blurs, and it’s impossible to draw any significance from the thousands of pixels that gaze back at me. I slam the computer shut, looking up for the first time in hours. I unfurl my hunched spine, setting off a series of cracking noises. Am I too young for arthritis to set in? I realize how dry my eyes are—I feel like I have to blink double-time to compensate for the strain they are under. My eyes are my windows to the world, but every day it feels like they’re closing just a little bit more.

The screen has consumed us. It has devoured our academic lives—every powerpoint, every assignment, every test, everything is now online. It has devoured our leisure—Instagram, Snapchat, Tiktok, Netflix, Among Us, YouTube are all parasites of our time. The screen is always famished, eager to devour more of our lives until every moment is pixelated, until every moment is spent online.

Increased reliance on our screens is damaging to our physical and mental health, for both students and teachers.

Instead of our school days being punctuated by brisk walks to and from classes, we can now lapse into being sedentary for hours on end, staring unblinkingly at our monitors. In just a few short months, students have developed health problems as a result of this lifestyle shift. According to a survey of IHS students conducted by the Tattler, these issues included dry and strained eyes, deterioration in vision, headaches, fatigue, back pain, and lack of exercise and time outdoors. An overwhelming majority of participants reported negative effects, and many expressed wishes that they could spend less

time on screens.

The blue light emanating from our devices is yet another hazard: it’s been shown to interfere with melatonin secretion and disrupt sleep. As if extended exposure to blue light from electronics wasn’t harmful enough, the negative effects are even more potent in the evenings, when most students are online completing homework and thus staring at screens well into the night. The survey data corroborates this, as most students reported that they are staying up later than ever and having a harder time falling asleep than they did before the pandemic.

The breakneck pace of digital media is contributing to a growing need for instant gratification and a decrease in the teenage attention span. Sleep deprivation and increased screen time have also played a part in making numerous students more unfocused and tired, according to survey data. These issues are exacerbated by the fact that distractions

are available at every turn. Social media, for example, has never been more readily accessible during school. It’s harder to pay attention in class, in part due to our learned impatience and in part due to the availability of social media and countless other distractions at home. Since teachers are already stretched thin from managing both their online and in-person students as well as grappling with new technology, it’s infeasible for them to supervise students and keep them on task.

The lack of access to adequate tools for success in this primarily digital learning environment has been a source of stress and anxiety for many. Those who have to contend with slow network speeds, sluggish computers, or antiquated software have a pronounced disadvantage in almost any conceivable academic scenario despite the efforts of the district to remedy these inequities. The more time that is spent online, the harder it will be for students impeded by these barriers to keep up with the pace of instruction.

EDITORIAL

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Staff 2020 – 2021 Editor-in-Chief

Anna Westwig ’21 editor@ihstattler.com News Editor Katie Lin ’22 news@ihstattler.com Opinion Editor Jinho Park ’22 opinion@ihstattler.com Features Editor Frances Klemm ’23 features@ihstattler.com Arts Editor Louisa Miller-Out ’22 arts@ihstattler.com Sports Editor Rohit Lal ’22 sports@ihstattler.com Literary Editor Adowyn Ernste ’22 literary@ihstattler.com Back Page Editor Ethan Carlson ’21 backpage@ihstattler.com Center Spread Editor Dorothy Hamilton ’21 centerspread@ihstattler.com Copy Editor Heewon Ahn ’21 copy@ihstattler.com Photography Editor Hannah Shvets ’23 photo@ihstattler.com Graphics Editor Aidan Hayward Toland ’22 graphics@ihstattler.com Layout Editor Jacob Yoon ’21 layout@ihstattler.com Business and Advertising Adam Saar ’22 business@ihstattler.com Webmaster Alexander Yoo ’21 web@ihstattler.com Distribution Manager Mollie Abelson ’21 distribution@ihstattler.com Archivist Raia Gutman ’22 archivist@ihstattler.com Faculty Advisor Deborah Lynn advisor@ihstattler.com

More time should be spent away from a screen and offline, where the playing field may be more level.

Decreasing screen time must be a collaborative effort. Students, dictated by their activities and assignments, cannot significantly reduce their screen time if their classes, homework, clubs, sports, and other miscellaneous activities are all online. Thus, the problem must be universally recognized, with teachers and students both working towards reducing screen time.

Teachers must give assignments that allow students to spend less time on a screen. Instead of requiring students to submit work on a Google Doc, for example, students should also be allowed to do their work on a paper copy and submit a photo of their handwritten work. Textbook work, which was once hated for its monotony, now can serve as a way to lessen screen time.

Audio assignments, such as podcasts, are another example.

Further, teachers should avoid making online classes an 85-minute online affair. For students accustomed to 45 minute periods, continued 85 minute focus is challenging. Since it is difficult to create a fully offline class, small measures can prove to be very helpful. Offering more breaks during classes, assigning classwork that can be printed out and done away from the main call: both of these are examples of small tweaks that can ease the burden on students.

However, although teachers can help students reduce their cumulative screen time, the responsibility still rests on students to manage their screen time efficiently. Leisure screen time, such as the time spent watching YouTube videos or scrolling through TikTok, should be monitored and reduced by students, especially immediately after a long online school day. Students must be aware that since school is fully Cover illustration by Jacob Yoon The Tattler is the monthly student-run newspaper of Ithaca High School. All currently-enrolled students at Ithaca High School are welcome to submit writing and photographs. As an open forum, The Tattler invites opinion submissions and letters to the editor from all community members. Email submissions to editor@ihstattler.com or mail letters to: The Tattler 1401 North Cayuga Street Ithaca, NY 14850 Send submissions by November 12th to be included in the December issue.

The Tattler reserves the right to edit all submissions. All articles, columns, and advertisements do not necessarily reflect the views of editorial staff.

To read The Tattler online, visit our website at www.ihstattler.com.

digital, school must be included in their cumulative screen time, and students must adjust their leisurely habits accordingly.

As school has digitized, we, as students, have been entrusted with more responsibility. There are no administrators to herd us to class nor are there teachers to tell us to put our phones away. The time when teachers had the time to compel us to do the right thing is gone. In this current dystopian world of Google Meets and Canvas modules, we have to learn to take care of ourselves, and thrive even in circumstances that stifle our creativity, health, and social lives.

We must go to classes on time, finish our homework, and find some sparks of intellectual curiosity within a world that is defined in 720p.

We must monitor our screen time, find different ways to get outside and exercise, and sleep at a reasonable time (3AM is not reasonable).

We must meet and interact with friends, either through the Internet or in socially distanced gatherings. We must look forward to college or getting a job or whatever else we may pursue once we leave high school, and these considerations seem to become exponentially more pressing and stressful with each day.

Being a Teenager™ in 2020 can feel overwhelming. The pressure to be a diligent student, to be a good friend both online and in person, to be politically and socially aware, to be responsible, all in the midst of a pandemic; these pressures all contribute to the constant anxiety that seems to pervade our generation.

Twenty years ago, perhaps some visionary high school student bored in 7th period imagined a utopia in which school was virtual, a utopia where school was vividly colored, meticulously planned, thoroughly optimized, and all accessible through technology. Buffering Google Meets, failed Canvas submissions, and unhealthy eyestrain certainly could not have been the utopia they imagined.

However, with continued social distancing measures and general caution, we can hope that the world will return to some semblance of normalcy. We can hope that we will interact through something better than the laggy audio and low-resolution video of Google Meet. We can hope that one day, we can congregate in a cramped G-wing hallway. Until then, however, we must learn to adapt in this digital world. And please, let’s spend less time on our screens—our eyes will thank us.

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NEWS

Recap of the Vice Presidential Debate and Town Halls

By FRANCES KLEMM Disclaimer: at the time of writing, the results of the 2020 Presidential Election were unknown.

O

n October 7, Americans saw Senator Kamala Harris and Vice President Mike Pence face off in a heated Vice Presidential debate. It was a much-anticipated event and both parties had high expectations for their candidate.

In light of Donald Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis, the two started off sitting at desks 12 feet apart with plexiglass in between them. Pence had previously tested negative, but according to CDC guidelines, he should have been quarantined at the time of the debate due to the possibility of exposure.

Traditionally, the Vice Presidential debate has not been known to necessarily

change voters’ minds, but instead to educate them on candidates’ differing plans.

However, debate moderator Susan Page did not ask follow-up questions, nor did she fact-check candidates, a choice criticized by experts following the event.

Page, a journalist for USA Today, focused the conversation on COVID immediately, questioning Harris on what the Biden administration would’ve done differently compared to the Trump administration, to which she replied with one of the most remembered lines of the night: “The American people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any Presidential administration in the history of our country.” She proceeded to launch into the ongoing Affordable Care Act (ACA) court battle, in which Trump is attempting to take down the healthcare fed-

eral statute signed into law by the Obama administration that protects millions of Americans. Harris brought up the ACA at least three times during the ninety-minute debate, as Pence struggled to find a suitable answer as to how Americans protected by the ACA will stand after its fall, considering how Trump and Pence have not yet announced a replacement plan.

When Page questioned the candidates on Breonna Taylor’s death, and moreover what actions should be taken to prevent further deaths of Black Americans, Pence pivoted to a law-and-order argument, claiming that the idea that Biden and Harris believe America is systematically racist is “a great insult.” Moving forward, they continued to be pressed over topics such as healthcare, climate change, and voting.

IMAGE FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES

Joe Biden at his town-hall event

NEWS

Twitter, as always, engaged in witty commentary surrounding the debate. The mainly noted moments of the night on the social media site came from Pence constantly interrupting Harris, and the Senator’s constant clapbacks. Her line, “Mr. Vice President, I’m speaking,” blew up. Of course, #Flygate went viral after a fly landed on Pence’s head and remained for two minutes, leading to thousands of memes and even an SNL skit.

Overall, the Vice Presidential debate seemed to bring up the popularity of Kamala Harris, as her net popularity numbers rose five points after the debate, whereas Pence’s numbers decreased by one point according to 538, an opinion poll analysis site. Most experts agreed that compared to the atrocious Presidential debate, the Vice Presidential debate was far more tolerable.

The next Presidential “debate” took place in the form of a dual town hall. A second in-person debate was dubbed unsafe after Trump’s positive COVID test, especially after he failed to take his quarantining orders seriously and continued to host rallies and speeches. Trump rejected the idea of having a virtual debate immediately, to which ABC replied by offering Biden a town hall, followed by NBC offering the same to Trump. The structure of town halls traditionally includes voters asking the candidates questions, in this case with a moderator present to make sure each question is fully answered.

The two campaigns decided to host their town halls on the exact same day and at the exact same time. Voters who were still undecided and who wanted to learn more about both candidates had to constantly switch back and forth between the two platforms, giving them a disadvantage from the beginning. There was also controversy surrounding NBC’s choice to offer Trump his town hall after he dropped out of the debate. Some argued that NBC, as a traditionally liberal-leaning news site, shouldn’t have given him the opportunity, while others wondered if the event’s purpose was to actually discourage voters from electing Trump after hearing him speak. Still, others believe that NBC simply wanted higher ratings.

The Trump segment was hosted by NBC news correspondent Savannah Guthrie, known from the Today Show and her role as a former White House news correspondent. On October 15, she pressed Trump on every single issue until he completely derailed off-topic, or was able to provide an answer. Guthrie led the first half of the town hall in a direct interview style, and then transitioned to opening the floor to voters’ questions, which directed him towards issues such as the QAnon conspiracists, the topic of denouncing white supremacy, and his lack of a healthcare plan.

Her constant fact-checking and unwillingness to accept an incomplete or nonexistent answer led many experts to praise Guthrie where they had criticized past moderators and interviewers before. One Twitter user tweeted, “What @SavannahGuthrie did last night was a public service. Every reporter, print, TV, or radio should learn from what she did. She refused to submit to being ‘spun,’ pushed through evasions, lies. It was terrific.” The more Guthrie pressed, the more clear Trump’s lack of plans and agenda for his second term and his inability to defend his own actions became. At one point, in response to Trump retweeting QAnon conspiracy theorists, Guthrie prompted, “You’re the President, not someone’s crazy uncle!”

A specific moment from Trump’s town hall highlighted by SNL days later included a voter telling Trump, “You’re so handsome

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when you smile.” The true humor of the moment revealed itself in a follow-up interview, in which she revealed she had already voted for Biden. A woman sitting behind Trump also set Twitter ablaze with her constant nodding along to his words, becoming referred to as a “human bobblehead” by many users.

At the very same time, Biden was sitting across from George Stephanopoulos, the former White House communications director, answering voters’ questions on ABC. Directly contrasting the first Presidential debate, Biden’s town hall was filled with information on his plans and policies without distractions and interruptions. Stephanopoulos seemed to enjoy himself, skipping the interview portion and simply moderating the conversation gently.

Biden was faced with questions such as what his response to COVID would have been, what he would do to bridge systemic inequities harming Black Americans, and other topics including tax cuts, his view on the 1994 Crime Bill, and more. When discussing COVID with a voter, Biden answered, “A President’s words matter, no matter whether they’re good, bad or indifferent. And when a President doesn’t wear a mask or makes fun of someone like me when I was wearing a mask for a long time, people say, ‘well it must not be that important.’” Biden’s town hall proved to be helpful for viewers who wanted to learn more about his specific policies.

The Vice Presidential debate and Presidential town halls both clearly reflected the opposing sides of the election, and accurately represented who each candidate is. Deciding between those candidates is in the hands of American voters.

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NEWS

Cluster of COVID Cases At The White House

By HANNAH SHVETS Disclaimer: at the time of writing, the results of the 2020 Presidential Election were unknown.

A

s COVID-19’s presence has become common fare for the world, the initial nationwide panic has begun to trend downwards, and some citizens have let their guard down in terms of safety procedures. One example of such behavior was the Supreme Court nomination event in the Rose Garden on September 26, in which Donald Trump announced his nomination of Amy Coney Barrett for Supreme Court Justice after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg on September 18. The event was attended by 200 people, and many photos show guests sitting close together without masks, not following widely accepted safety guidelines.

Eight of the people who participated in the event had already been confirmed to have the virus by October 3, and several more politicians in Trump’s inner circle followed suit, including his senior advisor Stephen Miller, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, and two Republican senators that had contact with Trump at the ceremony. Hope Hicks, Trump’s senior advisor, tested positive on October 1, quickly followed by Trump and Melania confirming they were infected two days later. Social media was flooded with expressive opinions, with users frequently referencing the irony of Trump’s comment towards Biden during the first Presidential debate, in which he mocked Biden for often wearing a mask.

Biden then tested negative and tweeted, “Jill and I send our thoughts to President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump for a swift recovery. We will continue to pray for the health and safety of the President and his family.” Trump assured the public he was asymptomatic, but was taken to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on October 2, where he reportedly ran a high fever and began to show symptoms. Three days later, he left the hospital and returned to the White House, tweeting, “Don’t be afraid of COVID. Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump administration, some really great drugs and knowledge. I feel better than 20 years ago!” His comment sparked criticism all over Twitter concerning his ignorant behavior.

Upon returning to the White House, Trump was seen removing his mask and waving to cameras. Many commented that he seemed to have difficulty breathing, but White House physician Sean Conley said Trump was doing fine. When giving a briefing outside Walter Reed the Saturday of Trump’s hospitalization, Conley stated, “This morning, the President is doing very well. At this time, the team and I are extremely happy with the progress he has made.” Trump also spoke about the “cure” he received for COVID: a cocktail of two monoclonal antibodies manufactured

by Regeneron, a biotechnology company. The antibodies were developed using human cells from a fetus aborted decades ago, which was seen by many as controversial due to Trump’s mainly

pro-life stance. The Trump administration had previously suspended federal funding for most new scientific research projects involving fetal tissue from an aborted fetus in 2019, potentially halting or slowing down medical progress. However, all three major vaccine makers in the US have received funding from the White House, despite all using fetal tissue in some way in their research.

A common concern brought up by American citizens is that this so-called “cure” is not affordable for most Americans, especially those without medical insurance. Trump’s medical costs were all covered by the federal government, including his three days at the hospital, helicopter rides to and from Walter Reed, multiple COVID tests, steroids, oxygen, and the experimental antibody treatment. According to the New York Times, a hair colorist in Brooklyn reportedly received a $1,394 bill for getting a COVID test, a huge expense for many working class Americans.

As described by Fair Health, a non-profit in NYC, the median cost for COVID hospitalization for a patient over 60 is $61,912, and $31,575 for insured patients. Taking a helicopter to the hospital would add on $38,770, or $21,698 after the insurance payout.

Not having to pay for the expenses personally made Trump’s recovery far more feasible than it would have been for the average American citizen.

The week before Trump’s positive test was fairly busy, during which he could have already been infected due to COVID’s incubation period. On September 25, he attended a fundraiser, and on September 26, after the Rose Garden event, he flew to Pennsylvania for a rally. He then attended both the reception for Gold Star military families on September 27 and the Cleveland debate on September 29. Trump often openly refuses to wear a mask, putting other attendees of the events at a higher risk.

Most of the infected people in Trump’s political circle had been at debate preparations and Barrett’s nomination. For example, Trump’s campaign manager, Bill Stepien, tested positive after traveling to the debate with Trump on Air Force One, and Michael Shear, a reporter who had traveled to a rally with him, also tested positive and experienced symptoms. The Vice Commander of the United States Coast Guard also became infected shortly after visiting the Gold Star families event at the White House, where masks were not worn and social distancing guidelines were not observed.

As cases in the US continue to grow, it is abundantly clear the crisis is not ending anytime soon. It is currently unknown exactly where Trump contracted COVID, and who else might be infected, a story that will surely unravel in the coming weeks. As Dr. Fauci, a member of the White House COVID task force and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases says, “We’ve got to get those numbers down. If we don’t get them down, we’re going to have a really bad situation in the fall.”

NEWS

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QAnon: Extreme-Right Conspiracy Theory Goes Global

By MOUNIR MORA-KPAI

F

ew conspiracy theories have scaled to the global size that QAnon has achieved within the past few months. Beginning in 2017, an individual under the pseudonym of “Q” claimed to be a high-ranking government official, and began dropping seemingly top-secret information on the anonymous imageboard platform 4chan. QAnon followers believe in several groundless ideas with no factual evidence. They believe Democrats, journalists, and global elites worship Satan and have child-trafficking rings, and that Donald Trump is leading the movement towards the “Great Awakening,” a period of salvation. They actively spread anti-semitic, islamophobic, and racist messages across the internet.

Though this may have started on the outskirts of the internet, QAnon has spread at an unprecedented rate, and has started to become mainstream. It is now a looming presence largely across social media platforms, specifically Facebook, where the conspiracy group’s growth was propelled by powerful algorithms. According to an NBC report published in August, an internal investigation from Facebook has “uncovered thousands of groups and pages, with millions of members and followers, that support the QAnon conspiracy theory,” with the top groups surpassing three million followers.

Starting in 2018, merchandise and signs with the letter Q have been spotted at Trump rallies all over the United States, and QAnon has even begun to be represented on the conservative side in government elections. Marjorie Taylor Greene, for example, a QAnon supporter, won a House primary election in Georgia. Trump later tweeted his support for her, calling her a “future Republican star” a few days later, as described by the New York Times (NYT).

Creed Newton, an Al Jazeera reporter, has stated that at least 24 political candidates have supported the conspiracy, and an NBC report notes that “70 congressional candidates have endorsed some part of the QAnon ideology in 2020.”

During COVID-19, QAnon has not only received positive responses among conservatives in the US, but abroad as well. The disorientation caused by the pandemic has become a breeding ground for the conspiracy. Chine Labbe, an editor at NewsGuard (a browser extension that assesses whether information on the internet is credible), explains that QAnon’s web of conspiracies is spreading exponentially in Europe. Al Jazeera has said that the web is adapting into “EU-centered—or even local—narratives.”

As described by the NYT, three years after its beginning in the US, QAnon groups “have sprung up from the Netherlands to the Balkans. In Britain, QAnon-themed protests under the banner of ‘Save Our Children’ have taken place in more than 20 cities and towns, attracting a more female and less right-wing demographic.”

QAnon’s largest foreign following is in Germany, where an estimated 200,000 people follow the group through platforms

including Youtube, Facebook, and the Telegram Messenger app.

In Germany, conspiracy theories in times of confusion are not a novel development, and the NYT has discussed how the anti-semitic ideas spread by QAnon have spurred the dangerous old ideologies of the far-right in Germany. As mentioned during a panel held by Al Jazeera, Sergey Lagodinsky, a member of the European Parliament, explains that in Germany, QAnon is becoming part of larger conspiracy theories such as the Reichsbürger Movement, another far-right anti-semitic group that completely refuses to acknowledge the existence of the German government. Lagodinsky continued to explain that QAnon has merged with local anti-mask rallies, as seen in the recent major protest in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.

When it comes to limiting the growth of QAnon in Europe, Lagodinsky points out that in a free society, it is difficult to find the balance between allowing free speech and believing “irrational theories.” However, it becomes a political issue when the ideas spread cause wide-ranged misinformation that could possibly have deadly effects, especially during a global pandemic. As noted by Al Jazeera, the ability of QAnon to swiftly change “the way people view reality” and build a “sense of unity among followers” is what is leading people to call QAnon a digitally spread “cult.” The Middle East Eye has discussed a few irrational theories spread by QAnon, including arguing that 5G networks are behind the pandemic, and implying that women donning masks marks the beginning of wearing faceveils, a covering sometimes worn by Muslim women in the Gulf.

QAnon’s rising dangerous reputation has led the FBI to list them as a potential domestic threat. According to NBC, while most QAnon believers will stay passive, shootings, harassment campaigns, two murders, and attempted kidnappings have already happened, as investigated by Facebook. Al Jazeera has since stated that Facebook is dealing with QAnon content by both reducing their visibility on the platform and banning them, similarly to how Twitter has already banned 7,000 QAnon accounts. Many more accounts remain, and it is expected that more will rebound.

As reported by the Guardian, “There now exists an entire QAnon media ecosystem, with enormous amounts of video content, memes, e-books, chatrooms, and more, all designed to snare the interest of potential recruits, then draw them ‘down the rabbit hole’ and into QAnon’s alternate reality.” Because of so many current issues regarding the pandemic, the economy, and politics, the situation is made vastly more complicated. As illustrated by an analyst who monitors online extremism in Britain, “It [QAnon] offers wish fulfilment—the idea that at some moment Donald Trump is going to liberate people.” QAnon’s message will resonate easily with vulnerable and naive people, offering a clear example of the new dangers society faces in the age of social media.

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NEWS

Leaked Tapes Show New Side of Melania Trump

By MANU BOSTEELS

T

hroughout Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign and his near four-year term as president of the United States, Melania Trump has lacked any significant, consistent presence in government and the media.

In 2016, she was the center of a fair amount of controversy surrounding her Republican National Convention speech, which was partially plagiarized from a speech delivered by Michelle Obama. Then, in 2018, the media latched on to her decision to wear a jacket with the words, “I really don’t care. Do u?” on a trip to McAllen, Texas, where she went to visit the immigrant children who had been forcefully separated from their families as a result of a Trump administration policy.

However, information regarding Melania’s political views had been minimal until September 2020, when Stephanie Wolkoff, Melania’s former senior adviser, published Melania and Me. In her book, Wolkoff discussed her close relationship with Melania in detail, later releasing the audio recordings now known as the Melania Tapes in October, consisting of July 2018 phone calls.

The tapes exhibit Melania complaining, for the most part, about having to plan for Christmas, the criticism of Trump’s border separation policy, and about those who questioned the jacket she wore on her trip to Texas. Melania’s statements are littered with profanities. According to CNN, concerning Christmas, the preparation for which is a traditional duty of the First Lady, she complained, “They say I’m complicit. I’m the same like him, I support him. I don’t say enough, I don’t do enough. Where I am.

I put—I’m working like a—I’m working my a** off with Christmas stuff that, you know, who gives a f*** about Christmas stuff and decorations, but I need to do it, right?”

As described by CNN, she went on to express her annoyance concerning the critics of Trump’s border separation policy, stating, “...they said, ‘Oh, what about the children that were separated?’ Give me a f****** break. Were they saying anything when Obama did that? I cannot go, I was trying to get the kid reunited with the mom. I didn’t have a chance—needs to go through the process and through the law.” Former POTUS Barack Obama and his administration never had a family separation policy, despite Melania’s comments claiming otherwise.

Perhaps the most troublesome part of these leaked recordings is her defense of the conditions in which separated children are being kept. As reported by CNN, Melania noted, “All these kids that I met, they were, they’re here in the shelters because they were brought by it through coyotes [a common term for those who help immigrants cross the border illegally]... the kids, they go in shelters. And the way they take care of them, it’s—you know, they even said, the kids, they said, ‘Wow, I will have my own bed. I will sleep on the bed. I will have a cabinet for my clothes.’”

She continued on, claiming, “It’s so sad to hear it, but they didn’t have that in their own countries. They sleep on the floor.

They are taking care nicely there. But, you know, yeah, they’re not with parents. It’s sad. But when they come here alone or with coyotes or illegally, you know, you need to do something. And

IMAGE FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES

A photo of Melania Trump getting into a car wearing a jacket that says “I really don’t care” a lot of, you know, a lot of, like, moms and kids—they, they are teached how to do it. They go over and say, ‘Oh, we will be killed by gang members. We will be—they—will be, you know, we will be. Ahh, it’s so dangerous.’ So they’re allowed to stay here.”

Immediately after the tapes’ release, Melania’s chief of staff Stephanie Grisham released a statement to CNN: “Secretly taping the First Lady and willfully breaking an NDA to publish a salacious book is a clear attempt at relevance. The timing of this continues to be suspect—as does this never-ending exercise in self-pity and narcissism.” As reported by the New York Times, Grisham accused Wolkoff of using the tapes as a selling point for Melania and Me, stating, “Her only intent was to secretly tape the First Lady in order to peddle herself and her book.” On October 16, Melania herself released a statement on the official White House website, which read, “We all know that more often than not, information that could be helpful to children is lost in the noise made by self-serving adults… A person who said she ‘made me’ even though she hardly knew me, and someone who clung to me after my husband won the Presidency. This is a woman who secretly recorded our phone calls, releasing portions from me that were out of context, then wrote a book of idle gossip.”

Regardless of the context or conditions under which the tapes were created, what they demonstrate is startling. It’s rare to see such a prominent political figure speaking so trivially about a widespread and damaging issue like the separated families. The way in which she defends what is essentially innocent children in cages as an acceptable situation is shocking. She echoed the perceived message of her infamous green jacket by mocking the mothers of children who feared that gang violence would endanger their lives, and the stream of profanities is something that Americans haven’t seen in the White House until the Trump administration. The recordings of phone calls between Wolkoff and Melania revealed to many that Melania just doesn’t seem to care.

Do u?

NEWS

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Armenia and Azerbaijan Reignite Conflict

By AITAN AVGAR

I

n late September, a longstanding conflict between the nations of Armenia and Azerbaijan was reignited. The dispute revolves around the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, a region with a majority ethnic Armenian population that is internationally recognized as a part of Azerbaijan. According to the Associated Press (AP), the Armenian government has stated that the fighting began when Azerbaijan fired missiles into Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, and targeted civilians and non-military infrastructure. The AP has also reported on Azerbaijan’s denials of these accusations and its blaming of Armenia for attacking Azeri cities in the region, like Ganja. Each side claims that the other is indiscriminately attacking populated areas and putting innocent lives in danger. As of mid-October, the civilian casualties on the Armenian side stand at 31 deaths and 102 injured. On the Azeri side, 42 deaths and 206 injured. The violence has also resulted in the deaths of over 630 military personnel. If the conflict continues with this sustained level of aggression, it threatens to draw in regional powers such as Russia and Turkey.

These recent tensions stem from a six-year confrontation initiated in 1988 by ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, who desired to be unified under Armenian jurisdiction. Up until 1991, both Armenia and Azerbaijan were part of the Soviet Union. After its collapse, the conflict escalated to an all-out war that killed 30,000 and displaced hundreds of thousands of both Armenians and Azeris. The Armenian population in Nagorno-Karabakh declared its independence from Azerbaijan and intention to join Armenia in a 1991 referendum, and in 1994, the nations implemented a delicate cease-fire that did not lead to a peace accord.

With the recent testing of the cease-fire, this skirmish risks more than just the relationship between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Many see the fighting as having the potential to devolve into a proxy war between Russia and Turkey, who have clashed in other recent regional conflicts, including those in Syria and Libya. As is often the case with such entanglements, national financial interest is a driving factor. In particular, the sales and distribution of natural gas and oil influence Russian and Turkish involvement, with Azeri pipelines leading to Turkey and competing with Russia’s exports to Europe.

These regional powers have already shown their national interests through the sale of weapons. Russia is the primary source of arms for all countries formerly part of the Soviet Union. While Russia has a formal allegiance to Armenia as seen in their defense agreement, they still supply weapons to Azerbaijan in attempts to balance power and maintain overall control in the region. Turkey is more informally involved. The country has reportedly been selling arms to Azerbaijan and directing Syrian mercenaries to aid in

the Azeri campaign. Further complicating the matter, Azerbaijan has also received sophisticated weaponry from Israel in the form of surveillance and attack drones.

There have been a number of attempts to calm the violence, including a Russian cease-fire effort on October 9 that was short lived, given that neither country adhered to their commitments to end clashes. Other countries have been seeking to exert their own influence by pushing for peace negotiations. Most notably, Iran has called on Russia and Turkey to build on previous efforts to reach an agreement in Syria and pursue peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The Iranian involvement demonstrates that this conflict has far broader international implications. Another way in which this regional clash is being affected by larger foreign policy developments is seen in the diminishing role of the United States on the world stage. In the absence of strong and stable American leadership in the region, the vacuum is filled with a multitude of efforts by traditionally less involved countries. On the one hand, US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo has commented on the need for peaceful negotiations between both the Armenian and Azeri governments. In an interview reported in Politico on October 19, 2020, Secretary Pompeo noted, “The resolution of that conflict ought to be done through negotiation and peaceful discussions, not through armed conflict...and certainly not with third party countries coming in to lend their firepower to what is already a powder keg of a situation.” On the other hand, it speaks volumes that aside from these comments, little US action has been taken almost one month into the conflict.

As the region is thrown into turmoil, the COVID-19 pandemic has infected nearly 100,000 people in both Armenia and Azerbaijan as of mid-October. The situation has made it difficult for the governments to confront the public health crisis, risking more death and illness. Hospitals near the fighting are becoming overwhelmed by the influx of both injured soldiers and civilians as well as the sick.

The conflict raises greater and enduring questions of self-determination and national borders. What role should the ethnic aspirations of Armenians play in the resolution of this conflict?

What factors should determine disputed territorial boundaries in case of competing national and ethnic claims? The same conflict has arisen again and again throughout history in the aftermath of the deterioration of an established international balance of power. This regional dispute could easily escalate into a global crisis similar to the likes of those witnessed in the twentieth century.

Hopefully, the international community will heed the warnings of past futile wars and push for durable peace that puts the interests of both Armenians and Azeris ahead of foreign interests.

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OPINION

A Guide to Taking Your Activism to the Next Level

By ELLA AVGAR

A

ctivism is an idea that has sparked the imagination of our generation. The social injustices of our time have prompted our generation to push for meaningful change in society. Many of us feel that innate desire for change. The stirring inside, that tells us that something should be done, can be done, needs to be done. But how? What can we, as teenagers, do to make change? Sometimes it feels hopeless to even try. Or when you do, it feels like you aren’t getting anywhere and nothing is changing. Or you don’t even know where to start. Many teens these days have taken to posting information on social media. In my experience, most spread the word through a feature on social media platforms called Stories. By clicking on someone’s story, you can see a photo, post, or short video that disappears after 24 hours. When swiping through stories, you see a large number displaying posts that advocate and inform. Important issues like racial justice, climate change, and feminism are all coming at you in short bursts. It can be overwhelming. You start to wonder: yes, spreading the word is important, but what can you actually do?

Social media activism should always be backed up by actions and lead to commitments toward change offline, in the real world. At a time when most of our lives are digitized, it is important to remember that the feelings and passion behind current issues are real. Those passions need to be expressed without screens as a barrier. Read on to learn three ways to take your activism to the next level.

COMMUNICATE Now, this idea might seem like one to skip. Maybe you’ve heard it already and don’t think it works. Or, you have posted on social media and think that you’re covered. However, there is more to communication than posting on social media. Talking to someone face to face, socially distant and with a mask of course, is essential to creating change. Do you feel more inspired when you read an infographic or have a conversation with someone who is passionate about the world around them? Take the time to tell someone about your cause and what you believe in. They might not agree, but communicating can also help you to focus your own ideas and refine your knowledge. If they ask questions you don’t know the answer to, do some more research and learn something new. Opening up to others helps us share the responsibility of engaged activism, making our jobs feel easier. Try to ensure that others feel like they have a space in the world of activism. Teachers, friends, parents, siblings talk to anyone and everyone. So much of activism happens online that we often forget the benefits of the back and forth of a good conversation.

BUILD COMMUNITY Yes, you can be a very successful activist on your own, but haven’t you heard that there is strength in numbers? Reach out to your friends and other students at your school who have the same ideas as you. See if you can work with them to raise awareness for your cause. Don’t be intimidated by others who may seem like “better activists” than you. If you care and have a hunger for change, you are qualified. It is easier to think of ideas and get things done when you have a small group of like-minded people to work with. Collaborating with others can inspire you to keep going and continue standing up for what you believe in. While you might have to virtually connect due to the current pandemic, virtually connecting with a group of dedicated people who are working towards change makes a world of difference compared to reposting something on social media.

SHOW UP This is what activism comes down to. Showing up. Taking your activism to the next level. Being at protests, boycotting companies, raising money. Don’t worry, you don’t have to take it upon yourself to do all these things at once. But set a goal, a small one to start, and work towards it. You could try and attend one protest a month or make five reusable masks a week: any goal that works for you. While this may seem obvious, goal setting is a key step that is often neglected. Putting what you want to do down on paper holds you accountable. It also gives you a plan. A plan on how you are going to show up. This way, you know what you need to do, which is half the battle. All that is left is to see your goal to its end.

As high school students, navigating homework, extracurriculars, family responsibilities, free time, and on top of it all, being an activist, isn’t easy. But I hope that this article offers some clarity and points out concrete routes to successful activism. Whether you have used these tools before, or not, let this article serve as a reminder to you. A reminder that the world is still going on beyond our social media accounts. Hearts are still beating. Mouths are still smiling. Feet are still standing.

And yet, guns are still firing. The Earth is still burning. Innocent people are still being killed.

Together, as a community, let’s put down our phones and step outside. Let’s stop turning a blind eye or wishing we could do something. Right now, let’s start breaking down the walls of oppression and building our activism up.

OPINION

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America’s Debates Are Failing Us

By MUKUND GAUR

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n Wednesday, October 7, Kamala Harris and Mike Pence faced off in their first debate. The debate was in stark contrast to the presidential debate, and it provided more proof that our debate system has flaws which cannot be ignored. Some of the most important topics were left without enough airtime or unanswered by both candidates. Eerily reminiscent of the first debate, where the candidates completely ignored the topics of discussion, the vice presidential debate showed that our debate system cannot be counted on to accurately show American voters a broad range of topics, and how each candidate wished to handle them. Instead, it can only be counted on to showcase the bitter arguments of two parties continuously at odds.

The vice presidential debate was not as cacophonous as the presidential debate, where debate guidelines disappeared and were replaced by a “might makes right” mentality. However, ignoring the question asked and instead using the airtime to launch a separate attack has been a main theme in both debates. This began with the very first question, where the moderator asked Senator Harris what a Biden administration would do about COVID-19 that a Trump administration would not. Instead of responding to the given question, Harris launched an attack on the Trump administration’s failures to address COVID, with barely 15 seconds of her response being about the Biden administration. While this was a valid point to make, the original question was ignored, meaning that the millions of voters watching the debate didn’t see an answer to the question. Instead, they saw what they had already seen in campaign ads all over the country—scathing remarks. The tangential discussion was not limited to Harris. The first question asked to Pence was why the coronavirus death toll in the US was so high. His response was a targeted defense of the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus, from vaccines to medical supplies. His response was far from answering the question.

Americans wanted to know, where did the response go wrong? But instead, they saw, as they would again and again throughout

IMAGE PROVIDED

Mike Pence (Vice President) and Kamala Harris (Biden’s running mate and former Presidential candidate) face off. the debate, a carefully planned political statement which answered the question only when it wanted to. This theme of skirting questions and derailing topics is characteristic of our debate system, which makes no attempt to keep candidates on topic.

Questions in a debate are meant to guide the discussion, not to serve as cues for candidates to begin speaking on a topic of their choice. In the last two debates, however, this has been a recurring theme.

On COVID-19, voters didn’t hear plans, nor did they hear hope. Instead, they heard one candidate campaigning on failure and another candidate defending it stubbornly. When Pence was asked if he had an agreement with Trump about presidential disability, he completely ignored the question. Instead, he continued the previous debate, and began to talk about vaccines, an entirely unrelated topic. In his entire response, the question was not answered, or even mentioned. More often than not, the topics which are most important to voters do not align with what is politically advantageous to candidates, and as a result, these topics are carefully avoided. Worst of all, our debate system does not punish going off topic. It makes no attempt to stop it.

In order for our debate system to work as intended, some type of framework needs to be implemented that prevents

candidates from taking advantage of loopholes. The two major problems that we have witnessed in our most recent debates are candidates going off topic and candidates going overtime. The latter can be solved with a “chess clock” framework, where candidates may speak when they wish about the topic, and they have a set amount of time that they can use. If they run out of time, their microphone will be muted. This will prevent candidates from going overtime without a punishment.

The issue of going off topic, too, would be ameliorated with the introduction of the chess clock system. With limited time, candidates would not want to go off topic.

In conclusion, our debate system is riddled with flaws, and needs great reform.

By not stopping candidates from going off topic, or avoiding questions, it allows them to hide information from us. After all, what can a debate mean to Americans if their only purpose is to convince us that failures don’t matter and success is everything? Debates will be political, and they will always be full of differing agendas, but when candidates use them as an opportunity to misinform the public, sow distrust, and minimize important issues, then they are no longer meaningful. Our debates should be a beacon of hope, showing us what each party hopes to achieve for America. They should not be trapped in despair and failure.

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OPINION

Amy Coney Barrett’s Appointment Could Be Disastrous

By LOUISA MILLER-OUT

IMAGE PROVIDED

Amy Coney Barrett, the confirmed Supreme Court Justice.

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y way of a narrow Senate vote, the Supreme Court has fallen completely under conservative control. The passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg left an empty seat on the court for which President Trump rushed to choose a nominee: Amy Coney Barrett, a right-wing judge from a tight-knit, secretive, and fervently religious community in Louisiana. At first glance, she may seem like an intellectual and pragmatic judge, loyal to the Constitution and unbiased by her rather extreme religious and philosophical views, as she and Trump have repeatedly claimed.

However, a deeper look into her judicial and personal records reveals dark and troubling forebodings of what is to come now that she’s been appointed to the highest court in the land.

First of all, Amy Coney Barrett’s appointment counters the precedent set during the end of the Obama administration and falls in with the general political trend of fast-tracking judicial confirmations when the Senate and President belong to the same party. Obama nominated Merrick Garland to succeed the deceased Antonin Scalia in March of 2016, but Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell dismissed the appointment. He demanded that a replacement be chosen by the next president elected, despite the fact that there was sufficient time to confirm the nominee in the Senate. It’s now the day of the general election, yet Amy Coney Barrett, who has ironically likened herself and her judicial philosophy to the late Scalia, was in confirmation hearings just last month, having been nominated only a few days prior. If President Obama was denied the nomination with

months and months to go until the election, surely the same policy would apply to President Trump, even more so because he’s slated to lose power? But contrary to common sense, the Senate rushed at breakneck speed to confirm her, a shady yet potent decision which could tip the Court into far right territory and overturn landmark cases, stripping countless Americans of liberties they’ve enjoyed, no, relied upon for decades.

The Supreme Court now has a 6-3 conservative majority, which allows for a cascade of regressive rulings. Two conservatives now have to dissent to prevent any right-aligned decision from taking effect, and with the conservative leanings of most of Trump’s appointees, that quota will be difficult to fulfill on most issues. The combined loss of a powerful liberal dissenter, the late Ginsburg, and the addition of a diehard conservative, Barrett, is liable to result in repealment of many of the advances towards equal rights made in recent years. Such cornerstones of reproductive justice as Roe v. Wade are in danger of being overturned, meaning anyone with a uterus is likely to lose the option of abortion. Barrett has already stated that she does not think Roe deserves untouchable status. While she has not yet stated a clear intention to overrule it, her pro-forced-birth stance has revealed itself through lectures administered at the University of Notre Dame, where she also joined an anti-abortion rights faculty group. Her views have been openly lauded by conservatives and evangelicals, groups which have readily expressed their intention to take away the right to safe, legal abortion once and for

OPINION

all. Along with her desire to control other people’s bodies, Barrett has shown herself to be an opponent of marriage equality as well.

The cult to which she belongs, the People of Praise, is strictly heteronormative, adheres to antiquated gender norms, and rejects openly gay people. With Barrett on the Court, Obergefell v.

Hodges, the landmark case which allowed same-sex couples the right to marry, is in tangible danger of being overturned, which would be a major setback in the ongoing struggle for LGBTQ+ equality. Although Barrett has repeatedly stated that her personal views do not affect her judicial career, research has determined that judges’ personal and partisan ideologies do in fact play a significant role in how they rule. After all, if they are really impartial, why do they belong to political parties? Openly conservative judges strongly tend to make decisions that align with their personal beliefs.

The uproar over Barrett’s views is steeped in fear for the future of women and the LGBTQ+ community, as well as the future of American secularism. The separation of church and state is written into the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, yet it has not traditionally been respected (cf. the tax-exempt status of churches, government funding of religious schools, etc.).

Barrett’s appointment will likely worsen the already breached secularism and religious freedom that is supposed to be a founding principle of this country. As previously mentioned, she belongs to the People of Praise, an insular group with deeply entrenched values of community, piety, and social traditionalism.

Its religious doctrine includes influences from both Catholicism and charismatic worship and its adherents often play a massive role in each others’ spiritual and personal lives; membership in this group is more weighty than simply belonging to a church or religious sect. The chilling creed heavily emphasizes the differences between men and women and seeks to define their

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roles and future opportunities for them. Barrett’s relatively lofty career is actually anomalous, but that does not mean she is a feminist. Women in the community supposedly have nominal equality, but the leadership is almost entirely male and women are placed into separate, subordinate spheres of influence by a 2009 document procured by the New York Times. Again, marriage is considered relegated to heterosexual couples, and patriarchy within the household is encouraged—husbands’ duties as outlined by the grup include “correcting” their wives, who are advised to “take their instruction seriously”. If judges’ personal beliefs have a heavy hand in shaping the way they rule, it follows that Barrett’s extreme leanings toward the religious right are likely if not guaranteed to trickle into her policy decisions.

As the farce that is Amy Coney Barrett’s rushed confirmation hearings continued, she showed herself to be comparable to the President himself in her ability to evade questions. She refused to comment on whether Trump can avoid ceding power should he lose the election, whether it is wrong to separate children from their families, or whether climate change is real. Just like Trump’s refusal to condemn white supremacy, her silence speaks volumes. Her refusal to acknowledge even the most basic of scientific truths is incredibly disheartening for a young, pragmatic American such as myself, and even more so for those who live in areas that have been ravaged by wildfires, droughts, and catastrophic hurricanes. Roughly half of the people in this country will be affected should our right to abortion be repealed, not to mention the multitude of my LGBTQ+ comrades who will lose the right to marry the people they love. Amidst the current political climate of lies, vitriol, and obfuscation, I, along with so many others, seek truth, justice, and clarity. Amy Coney Barrett will provide none of these, and that is an unfathomable disservice to the American people.

From the Archives

Commentary on the 2006 Tattler: The Electoral College

By RAIA GUTMAN Disclaimer: at the time of writing, the results of the 2020 Presidential Election were unknown.

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n November 2006, approximately fourteen years ago, an IHS student named Annette S. wrote an article for the Tattler entitled “The Electoral College: An Anachronism?” The debate over the electoral college gained most attention in recent decades following the 2016 general election, in which former secretary of state Hillary Clinton garnered a greater percentage of the popular vote but lost the election to current president Trump, who claimed the Electoral College points. Now, with the results of this year’s especially contentious election expected soon, the same concerns have resurfaced. Democrats wonder if it’s fair for

Trump to be able to win the presidency again using the Electoral College with or without winning the popular vote. No matter the outcome of the election, the question remains: is it time to rethink the decisions of our Founding Fathers?

Much of the problem with the current system stems from the early organization of the United States. Shortly after declaring independence from Britain, the thirteen autonomous states each drafted their own constitution, preventing any real centralized organization despite the efforts of the weak Continental Congress. At first, Pennsylvania eliminated its executive branch of government, leaving it without a governor for its first few years Continued on page 14

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FEATURES

Commentary on the 2006 Tattler: The Electoral College Continued from page 13 of statehood. Even after the Constitution was ratified, the states did not fully see themselves as a united nation. Georgians and Vermonters had little in common other than their mutual victory over the British.

The simplified layout of the American electoral system is that both of our legislative bodies are chosen through direct election, meaning the candidate who receives a plurality of the popular vote wins a seat. On the contrary, Annette’s article explains the president of the United States (“POTUS”) is voted in by a number of electoral votes assigned to each state. This distorts the influence of any one vote on the outcome of the election, as shown by the states that routinely vote for one political party or another—for example, New York State has not voted Republican in national elections since 1988. Fearing mob rule, the founding fathers established a system that would prevent the uneducated masses from determining the turnout of an election. Annette recalls, The founders who argued for true popular sovereignty were overruled by those who believed that educated, upper-class men were the most trustworthy members of the population.

They thus decided that members of an elite assembly would have to act as public servants and convene to make the choice that would best serve the common good.

Clearly, the first political decision-makers in our country’s

history had values very different from our own. Many of them owned enslaved people and never imagined that a Black, female, or Indigenous person would participate in their political system.

Persistent voter suppression has aligned with that perspective, and it’s hard not to wonder if that precedent can be overcome.

The debate over the founding of our country and its lasting structures encompasses more than the limits of the electoral college: it brings into question the founders’ narrow perspectives as wealthy, white settlers on Indigenous lands.

Annette ultimately argues that, as our country has evolved from one in which participation in government is limited to landholding males, so should our electoral system. Echoing recent criticism, she asserts that our elections must give equal weight to each vote. Annette would surely be dismayed at the outcome of the 2016 election and use it as proof of the foul play she warned against twelve years prior.

The opportunity we have as 21st century Americans looking back on a rich and convoluted history is invaluable. It can start locally, by exploring the perspectives of the people who inhabited Tompkins County before us, whether it be fourteen or 250 years in the past. Such analysis encourages the questioning of both modern and antiquated values and motivates us to evaluate our role in an ever-changing society.

Find the original 2006 article here: https://www.ihstattler. com/static/november2006/view.php?a=_cselectoralcollege

Online Business 101: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly — Part II

By ELLA KEEN ALLEE

H

ello, and welcome back to Part II of starting your own online business! Last time, we talked a little bit more about “the basics”: how to make your products, digitize your designs, and finally the importance of choosing a good name. This time, we are going to discuss the more fine-tuned details, such as stocking your shop, choosing payment methods, packaging, and most importantly, opening up! So, let’s get started!

Stocking Your Shop and Payment Methods Stocking your shop, at least on Etsy, takes a little bit of work.

To add a listing, you go to the Shop Manager page, which serves as your information center. Each listing costs $0.20, paid after your listing “expires” or sells out, which is over a period of four months.

You’ll have to include all kinds of information about your product, such as its title, type (is it a physical product, or a digital copy?), and shipping information, including shipping prices, where it can

be shipped, and its original zip code. It sounds more confusing than it actually is though—you’ll quickly get the hang of it after making a couple of your first listings.

You’ll actually establish preferred payment methods while you’re first setting up, and Etsy gives you good information about how to configure everything. The two main options are either to connect your bank account so the money goes directly there, or to use a PayPal where you can transfer money from there to your account, which can be preferred if you do not want to give Etsy your bank account information for security reasons. Etsy does everything else automatically—your customers can choose which card payment works best for them, and Etsy converts that to your chosen method. You can also choose the frequency of deposits — transfers can range from every day to every month, so you get a lot of flexibility in terms of when and how you get your well-earned revenue.

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Shortcut/Hack #1: Etsy has an incredible number of tutorials and videos on how to navigate the more finicky elements of starting a shop. Everything is already pretty clear, but take advantage of the Community & Help section in your Shop Manager, which includes Forums, a Seller’s Handbook, and more!

Packaging For me, figuring out how I want all of my packaging to look has been one of the most fun parts of this whole process. This is where you can really customize everything, and think about the customer’s experience as well—make them gasp at your creative designs! However, it is important to note that you don’t want too much going on with your packaging, because your art should still be the star! They paid for the product, not the added package (this takes the idea that it’s what’s inside that counts to a whole new level). So, let’s start from the inside out. Besides your art, one of the things that can really make you stand out from the crowd is a personalized note or business card. Business cards are important so that your customers have more information about how to find you again—definitely add your Etsy shop URL, and even better, a social media page!

There are a multitude of websites where you can design cards or add your own art to them, so when choosing, you really can’t go wrong. Just make sure that you can access reviews that show you how the shipping time and design process were—that information is really important, because you don’t want to end up with more customers than business cards! For mine, I used Moo (moo. com), a wonderful business that manufactures stickers (more for shipping), cards, flyers, and more—I would definitely recommend! Personal notes are also a very nice way of saying thank you to your customers. It doesn’t have to be too complicated, but everyone appreciates gratitude, and it’s a great way to show customers that they are important to you. The next level would be considering what you want to wrap your art and cards in. I personally like tissue paper, because it’s inexpensive but looks nice (and once again, doesn’t take the spotlight off your art pieces).

Wrapping your products tightly in tissue paper, cloth, et cetera also doubles as protection, so that hopefully your art is in mint condition when it reaches your customers. The final layer is your actual shipping package, or “mailer.” There is a lot of variety in mailer types, and you’ll come across different opinions about the overall protection level of each. Poly mailers are thin plastic, and are best used for clothing/soft products that won’t get bent out of shape. Bubble mailers are also plastic, but provide more rigidity thanks to the lining of plastic bubbles. Rigid paper mailers are probably the ones I’d most recommend—as the name suggests, they are not easily bent and provide the best protection for art prints, stickers, and other products in that realm. There are many more different types, and it should ultimately be up to you to discover what works best for you and your products!

Shortcut/Hack #2: Staples, an office supply retailer, is also a good resource for business cards! They are incredibly affordable, and give you full freedom in terms of designing, which is really valuable Shortcut/Hack #3: USPS (store.usps.com) has all kinds of free mailers on their website! You can order packs of 10 to 25 at a time, and products range from plastic envelopes to flat rate boxes.

This is extremely useful if you need to save money or order more

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mailers in a pinch!

Logo Design and Opening Up Shop Another important thing to do before opening is to design your own logo. Once you’ve chosen a name, you might automatically have a logo in mind, or it might require some experimenting. Let’s take my logo for example—my shop name is Lemon + Fern—just from the title, you might venture to say that my logo should be a lemon and then a fern, and honestly, you wouldn’t be wrong.

However, it did take some experimentation and work. I finally settled on a yellow circle with a fern shape on top, which I absolutely love! However, it doesn’t have to be that obvious. I recommend experimenting with simple shapes at first, and developing it from there. Remember, your logo shouldn’t be too loud and busy, because it’s always your art that counts.

So, you’ve finally made it to the end, and you’re opening up shop! What a crazy, amazing ride! But wait—how do I advertise?

The best way to get your shop noticed is to first reach out to friends and family, and tell them about your new venture! Next, I would recommend making a video or posting pictures of your artwork on social media, which will reach more of your friends, family, and peers. I think it is also helpful to have a dedicated account for your shop—somewhere where you can post updates, new art, et cetera.

And now, you’re actually at the same spot as me. My shop is opening on November first, and I couldn’t be more excited! It’s always been a dream of mine to be able to showcase and sell my art, and here I am! I hope these articles have been informative, and that if you ever want to open up your own shop, you’ll have some great starting knowledge—pretty soon you’ll be able to press “publish” on your last listing, and you’ll be off to the races.

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ARTS

Art for Racial Justice in Ithaca

By QUINN CHANG MARTIN

IMAGE BY SHIRA EVERGREEN FROM UPLIFTED ITHACA

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n August, the Southside Community Center, Greater Ithaca Activities Center (GIAC), and other organizations committed to social justice teamed up to lead the Ithaca community in responding to the racial bigotry and violence in our town, country, and world by painting a Black Lives Matter mural at the intersection of State and Plain streets. Many Ithacans gathered together and spent the day painting, creating a beautiful work of art, and receiving a lot of attention locally. The mural was large and multicolored, with symbols promoting racial equality and justice. Each letter was different, and each detail showed the strong emotions the artists felt when they designed it.

In addition to leading the creation of this beautiful community art project, local organizations like Southside have always been at the forefront of racial justice, doing their part to create a community that accepts and celebrates all. In 1927, The Frances Harper Women’s Club, which was led by a group of Black women, started an organization to help people on the southside of Ithaca, and make them feel heard. This mission, along with the values that the Frances Harper Women’s Club believed in, sparked the founding of the Southside Community Center. Since it was created, Southside has been instrumental in bettering the Ithaca community. GIAC and the other organizations who put this event together also have long histories of helping to improve our community.

Although the mural project received positive attention, some people refused to respect the hard work and profound desire for justice that went into it. On Sunday, October 3, just a few hours after a contentious and hateful “Blue Lives Matter” protest, three men were caught on camera leisurely pouring black paint onto the street and spreading it over the mural, obscuring the enchanting piece of political art that many people had collaborated on. The trio spent ten minutes defacing the piece, as if they did not care about getting caught. After covering about half of it, they walked away. This act, a clear statment against the Black Lives Matter social justice movement, is a perfect example of the racism that’s poisened humanity and America.

The response to this hateful act was fast and inspiring. It caused local outrage, and the mural was restored in a matter of hours. People who participated in the weekly Black Lives Mat-

The BLM Mural in Ithaca ter protests gathered around the defaced mural and put their resources together to show their passion and strength. The energized protesters made it clear that they stand strong against racism and bigotry, and that they will restore the mural as many times as they have to in order to show that hate will never win.

Murals, and other types of public political art, have been created not just in Ithaca, but around the country. This type of commentary and activism is an effective usage of Americans’ First Amendment rights to free speech and expression. It is one of the catalysts that have sparked a national movement and dialogue about racism, and cemented the idea that we desperately need to incite change in both people’s minds and public policy. Currently, one of the most important and culturally impactful political art pieces is the Black Lives Matter street mural in Washington, in front of LaFayette Square. It was commissioned on June 5 of this year, and is located on K Street in downtown D.C. K Street is also where many political lobbyists work and is one of the main political centers of Washington. To have the mayor of our country’s capital commission a work of art that addresses such a pertinent issue, despite not having support from a large number of our national leaders, is a form of peaceful protest emblematic of the magnitude of this movement.

While we have made a lot of progress as a nation and as a city to fight the racial bias and violence we see, we are so far from perfect. Ithaca is often thought of as a very liberal and very inclusive place, or “ten square miles surrounded by reality.” In truth, Ithaca has its fair share of hatred and ignorance, and comprises people of all beliefs and political leanings. After the defacement of the mural, our mayor, Svante Myrick said on Facebook, “What’s not surprising is that while dozens of Ithacans worked in broad daylight and shared community to create the mural—this vandal snuck around in the dark of night.” This exemplifies the shadowy racism that lurks behind the facade of inclusion and positivity. When we treat Ithaca as a perfectly unbiased, inclusive, and open-minded place and do not acknowledge that we are also part of the problem, nothing will get done. Our ignorance blinds us from seeing how we can better our community. We must work together to recognize and overcome our prejudices so Ithaca can truly become a safe and inclusive place for all.

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Villains! A Review of Madvillainy

by MF DOOM and Madlib

By SIMON COHEN

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advillainy, released in 2004, is considered one of hiphop’s greatest feats, and with good reason. Its eclectic, rough, and often very avant-garde production is something only the best of hip hop can come close to. Its subject matter is bizarre and somewhat unnerving at times, as the metal-faced villain MF DOOM will rap about anything from an encounter with a girl with bad breath, to hosting an upper-class bistro, to world domination. And of course, DOOM’s bouncy, buttery smooth bars give the album character with his gruff voice and delivery while painting a clear and often unnerving picture. DOOM has displayed incredible technical ability for his entire career, but on this album, he truly lives up to the line, “wrote the book on rhymes a note from the author,” off the track Raid.

The album starts off with the skit-like sequence “The Illest Villains,” which is full of psychedelic sounds and samples from old superhero shows and newsreels, referring over and over again to the two villains and their dastardly deeds. As soon as the track ends, we transition into the first real track of the album, “Accordion.” As one might assume from the title, the track relies on an accordion sample throughout as MF DOOM raps in a freestyle-like manner throughout the song, describing his villainous personality and his futuristic rhymes. Madvillainy doesn’t necessarily stray far from this formula in its 47-minute runtime. There are, of course, other skit sequences like “Bistro,” where it appears that MF DOOM is hosting an upscale bistro as the main act of the night. There’s “America’s Most Blunted,” an appropriately trippy experience dedicated to marijuana, with infomercials sprinkled in between verses about just how high the villain and his goons can get. There’s “Rainbows,” a dirty, dusty track with no rapping and MF DOOM vocalizing out of tune over jazz samples as DOOM coolly plots his criminal enterprises, telling an unknown figure to watch their back. “Eye” is another track that strays far from the typical formula, with vocals from Stacy Epps and zero rapping from DOOM or anyone else, and winds up sounding like a 90s R&B track from the Upside Down, with eerie, echoey vocals sounding reversed at some points. “Operation Lifesaver” is another standout track, but not entirely for its production or rapping, though its stereotypically 80’s sample and poetic lyrics go over smoothly and very well as usual. Its subject matter (DOOM’s encounter with a girl in a club with extremely bad breath) exemplifies just how talented DOOM is in that he can turn such an odd and comedic interaction into an enthralling experience.

There are some entirely instrumental tracks on the album as well, which act almost like interludes to DOOM’s endless flow of quotables. There’s “Sickfit,” a dark, grimy production with jangly, haunting piano lurking in the background; there’s “Do Not Fire,” driven by a deep, rumbling bass and featuring downright creepy samples of villainous and insane laughter as well as piercing screams and lines from Street Fighter. Finally “Supervillain Theme,” a very appropriately titled track, sounds right out of a 70’s Saturday Morning Cartoon, with bouncy hip hop drums and some additional sampling.

While one might think that even with all this variety, the tracks that fall under Madvillainy’s more formulaic elements might get tiring, many tracks shows quite the opposite. “Meat Grinder” starts with a thirty-second period of a rock sample with odd, gremlin-esque voices repeating “the jar is under the bed—” and then suddenly the sample cuts off and we get deep, rumbling bass and eerie guitar lines echoing across the track along with DOOM’s bars about his lame shoe game, his bad luck with a girl, and his immense rhyming skills as he looks down on other emcees. There’s “Fancy Clown,” a sad downtrodden song from the perspective of one of DOOM’s other personalities, Viktor Vaughn, after he finds out his girlfriend cheated on him with MF DOOM himself.

The sound of a girl responding to his lines hangs in the background, which perfectly illustrates MF DOOM’s cartoonish personalities and his storytelling abilities. “Figaro” starts with a series of descending chords on a piano leading into the song.

DOOM takes a big inhale as the song enters a stumbling, creepy beat, and the rapper describes a cold, lonely man, with evil intentions and a bad history, once again touting his bars.

The last couple tracks perfectly show what this album is about.

“Great Day” is about just what the title implies, along with DOOM’s usual lyrical topics and quotables. It features a beat made up of a sample of warm 70’s synth chords, which can only be described as going for a walk in Central Park with your family on a beautiful day, all while trapped in the Matrix. It’s an example of familiar and nostalgic elements that have been twisted and deformed just enough to bring a genuine sense of fear and discomfort at some points. Madvillainy is ahead of its time; strange, fascinating and wholly unique. There will most likely never be another album like it, and its status as a classic is completely deserved. There are no flaws that come to mind when describing this album. It’s a solid 10/10 for me.

An all-knowing quiz for Seniors who have no clue what to do after graduation.

By Dorothy Hamilton

How do you feel about online school?

A. I’m just so bored that it’s hard for me to do my work, because it feels absolutely pointless. It’s made me think that most of what we do is just busy work.

B. I don’t like that I can’t sit in a classroom and interact as easily with my teachers, but if I focus on getting my work done and keeping my grades up, it’s honestly not that bad.

C. I miss being able to interact with people. I feel like there’s just so many other things I could be doing that would actually improve my life and benefit me more than attending school each day.

D. Honestly I don’t like it any more or less than in-person. I think I’m mostly just sitting in front of my computer and hoping I absorb everything through osmosis.

What kind of work do you like best?

A. I want to do something that personally interests me, or else it’s hard for me to focus. Anything that makes me feel like there’s a distinct purpose, rather than just learning for the sake of learning.

B. I like to do work that I think will help me the most in my future career.

C. I really like to give directly back to the community and learn about things happening right now in Ithaca.

D. I like to do hands-on, exploratory work that might surprise me.

If you could get food from anywhere in Ithaca right now, where would it be?

A. Whatever’s new and cool; I’m kind of sick of our restaurants.

B. I literally can’t go out to eat, I have to finish my homework.

C. Honestly, I’d probably ask my parents to cook me my favorite meal.

D. Shortstop or Taco Bell, but only if it’s between the hours of 12 and 3 AM.

Your results What IHS club would you be most likely to join?

A. International Club B. Model UN C. IHS Yearbook Club D. I want to start a new club where we just drive to random spots in Ithaca and rate the view and its potential for shenanigans.

What do you hate the most about quarantine?

A. I haven’t been able to leave Ithaca in, like, eight months.

B. I can’t tour any colleges!!

C. It’s nearly impossible to hangout with my friends.

D. I’ve literally never felt more suffocated by the constant presence of my family.

Which A. B. C. D.

of these scares you the most?

Spending the rest of my life at a 9-5 desk job.

Not living up to my parents’ expectations.

Losing touch with my current best friends.

Living in my parents’ basement.

Which of the following movies is your favorite?

A. Call Me By Your Name (for the aesthetic) B. Legally Blonde C. Garden State D. Into The Wild

Which Harry Potter character do you resonate the most with?

A. Bill Weasley B. Hermione Granger C. Ron Weasley D. Sirius Black, specifically when he breaks out of Azkaban

How are your college applications coming along?

A. Well, I have a huge list of schools and I’ve tried a bunch of times to write my supplements, but it’s hard to feel motivated when I can’t visualize myself at a school.

B. They’re going great! I made a plan and am sticking to my timeline. Obviously I already submitted my early application.

C. I mean, I’m technically working on them, but I feel like I’d just rather drive around with my friends and work more shifts at my job. There doesn’t seem to be much of a point when I’d rather do things that affect me right here, right now.

D. I’m planning on doing them the night before. It’s fine; don’t even worry about it.

Mostly A’s: You should recruit a couple friends to take a gap year and travel the world. Feeling like Europe? Purchase a Eurail pass and wander around the continent, pausing to swim along Spain’s Golden Coast and get delicious food in Italy.

You should still line up a college for the following year, but there’s no harm in taking some time to learn how to exist without the pressure of grades and graduation requirements. Live out your wanderlust dreams and maybe you’ll even become a travel influencer if you bring a camera.

Mostly B’s: Go directly to college. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. You’ve probably been tuning your transcript to boost your chances of getting into your dream school since at least eighth grade, so there’s no point in losing that momentum.

Even if you might not be able to move into your dorm right away, you’ll still get to attend classes online (or maybe even inperson if everyone actually social distances).

Mostly C’s: You should pick up some more shifts at your job, defer your enrollment in college for a year, and save your pennies until you can afford an apartment. Since Ithaca is kind of your favorite place, you might as well stay here and learn to exist in your beloved hometown without attending IHS. You’ll probably be able to drop your dirty laundry off with your parents’ if you can’t bring yourself to do it yourself. If your parents visit your apartment, you’ll get the satisfaction of saying “Not under my roof!” if they swear at the dinner table. Plus, you can exercise your newfound freedom as an adult and do everything you haven’t been able to do here as a kid.

Mostly D’s: There’s literally nothing stopping you from shoving a bunch of clothes in a backpack, throwing away your phone, and buying the cheapest plane ticket to the Alaskan wilderness. Maybe you can work on a farm, or maybe you’ll just end up pitching a tent and learning to fend for yourself (who needs money anyway??). If you play your cards right, you might even be able to erase your high school identity completely and create a new persona.

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The #OwnVoices Movement: Diversifying Literature for Young Minds

By FRANCES KLEMM

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he publishing world is disproportionately white and male, a problem since the beginning of published literature. Publishers have historically pushed away more diverse stories, categorizing all books written by women as “women’s literature” and discriminating against authors belonging to marginalized groups. In 2015, the Young Adult (YA) and Children’s Literature (Kidlit) world confronted this problem head-on when author Corinne Duyvis tweeted, “#Ownvoices, to recommend kidlit about diverse characters written by authors from that same diverse group,” for the first time. Since this tweet, the hashtag has grown and become a driving force in changing and diversifying the publishing industry. In 2020, you can walk into most libraries (including Tompkins County Public Library) and find a pamphlet or bookcase exclusively dedicated to #Ownvoices books.

So what is #Ownvoices? You might be surprised about how many #Ownvoices books you know. The basis of the movement is to amplify books in which the main character shares a marginalized identity or experience with the author.

For example, a book written about a deaf girl in high school is written by a deaf author. A book written about a queer Puerto Rican woman who grew up in the Bronx is written by a queer Puerto Rican woman who grew up in the Bronx. The original author who suggested the hashtag, when asked about who it applied to, replied, “Remember what I said about not wanting to moderate or regulate the hashtag?

Use it for whatever marginalized/diverse identity you want (I personally like the WNDB [weneeddiversebooks.org] definition), as long as the protagonist and the author share a marginalized identity.” #Ownvoices has been one of the biggest reasons why the YA genre has become so much more diverse, and arguably more popular. Here are my favorite #Ownvoices books. Note: These are limited to books

that I’ve personally read; I don’t want to give anyone secondhand information.

The Hate U Give is an excellent book; it’s very well known, incredibly moving and if you don’t want to read the book, at least watch the movie. The book is written by an African-American woman, Angie Thomas, who writes about the experience of a teenage Black girl names Starr after being pulled over by the police and seeing them shoot her friend. The story is heart-wrenching, and sheds so much light on the systemic racism and police brutality that plagues Black Americans. Angie Thomas has written plenty of incredible books about young Black girls. On the Come Up is another one of my favorites and a must-read.

This author is controversial, and it is completely up to you if you don’t want to separate his actions from his experience.

Personally, I’ve been able to come to the conclusion (you can come to your own) that Sherman Alexie’s experience is so strikingly underrepresented in American literature, especially told from the eyes of a comical teenage boy’s “diary”. The book is easy to read and offers a rare glimpse into the oppressive and terrible conditions of American Indians living in reservations today as Alexie grew up in the Spokane Indian reservation in the 1970s. Native Americans are often called “the invisible minority,” because their modern day ex-

perience and oppression is so overlooked by popular American culture. That is why books that represent this experience are so important. If you do not want to support the author, I suggest checking it out from the library. If you don’t feel comfortable reading anything from the author at all, I’d suggest reading other books such as An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz or There, There by Tommy Orange, also #Ownvoices books (though not YA).

The Poet X is absolutely beautiful; it’s one of those books where you feel inclined to bookmark every other page. It’s a story about a teenage Dominican girl growing up in Harlem, written by author and poet Elizabeth Acevedo, a Dominican immigrant who also grew up in the U.S. as a teenager. The book follows 15 year old Xiomara as she grows into a woman and discovers her love of poetry, a way for her to vent about everything and anything in her life, including her strict religious household, the sexual harassment and misogyny she experiences, romances, and her debate about whether she should go to the Slam Poetry night. If you haven’t read it already, don’t let the prose scare you away—this book is award winning, incredibly insightful and altogether just gorgeous. Elizabeth Acevedo has written a number of other amazing books, so check out any and all of them after you read The Poet X.

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finds sanctuary and a hope for her future. One way I like to describe this story is as starting out grayish and then slowly becoming more and more black and white, and in the end, you’re thrust back into gray. It’ll make sense when you read it. Allegedly is a story about a statistic from our criminal justice system, and how deep and dark the world can get. The hardest part about reading this book is accepting that this is someone’s reality. I never quite understood what it meant for a book to stay with you past the last page until I read this. I read Allegedly 2 years ago and I still find myself thinking about it all the time. It’s one of the most haunting books I’ve ever read—and it’s fantastic.

I am obsessed with this book. While I was reading it, I was providing updates on what was happening in it to everyone in my life whether they wanted it or not. No spoilers, but the ending was so shocking! This book deserves the entire world—I love you, Tanaz Bhathena (yes, I’m a fangirl, sue me). Anyway, the novel circles around orphan Zarin Wadia, a troublemaker with no female friends. Only boys who find her pretty talk to her, and she’s most commonly referred to as “the ‘girl like that’”. She keeps to herself but is the subject of endless gossip at her school in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Then she shows up dead in a car on the side of the road with Porus, a boy who only had eyes for her. The book reconstructs her life through her view, her enemies’, Porus’s, and her attempted rapist’s, until her life as the girl like that, heartbreak, pain, loss and all the rest weaves itself into a beautiful and intelligent story. It’s not a mystery in a traditional sense but a story about a girl that no one ever bothered to get to know besides through mindless gossip.

With the setting of Saudi Arabia, where Bhathena grew up, I also found myself interested in the cultural similarities and differences between her country and the U.S. Another detail that is loosely explored in the novel is the fact that Zarin identifies as Zoroastrian, a rarer religion which only 100,000 to 200,000 people worldwide practice but with which the author, Tanaz Bhathena also identifies. The book is amazing and really makes you think; go read it and you can talk to me if you have any complaints.

This book made me so unbelievably sad, and then so terrified I couldn’t sleep, and then sad again. Allegedly by Tiffany D. Jackson is the haunting and gritty story of Maya B. Addison, a 15-yearold Black girl who allegedly killed a white baby when she was 9 years old. She now lives in a group home where she is practically barred from the outdoor world, fearing for her life because of her roommates, and has a mother who visits rarely and only for show.

Finally, she meets Ted, a helper at a local hospital, with whom she

This is random, but I just realized John Green from the Crash Course videos is the same John Green as the author. I needed to announce that. Anyway, I wanted to include this book because firstly, I liked it a lot, and secondly, it shows the diversity of the #Ownvoices movement. John Green struggles with severe anxiety and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and he uses this book and its protagonist to shed light on his own experience. As a teenager, even in 2020, I have experienced so much misrepresentation of what OCD is. It’s a diagnosable mental illness, and Turtles All the Way Down gives it the representation it so rarely receives. The main character, Aza Holmes, struggles from OCD, and we get to see the many situations in which the illness affects her everyday life and controls her mind. She meets a very rich boy from her past; did I mention he’s rich? The book follows the romance of those two but also the journey of Aza as a person and her control over her OCD. And as it’s a John Green book, of course there will be random philosophical moments and plenty of deep metaphors in random and unexpected spots that will suddenly make you think really hard about life. Overall, it’s been critically acclaimed for being such a good representation of OCD, probably because it’s written by a person with OCD (#Ownvoices books are the best books). Go read it.

Here are some more books that I can’t officially recommend because I haven’t read them, but that you should definitely read and are on my must-read list. They are #Ownvoices books, because #Ownvoices books are the best books!

I’m Not Dying With You Tonight, by Gilly Segal Queens of Geek, by Jen Wilde When Dimple Met Rishi, by Sandhya Menon All Boys Aren’t Blue, by George M. Johnson The Book of Unknown Americans, by Cristina Henriquez The Upside of Unrequited, by Becky Albertalli History is All You Left Me, by Adam Silvera Juliet Takes A Breath, by Gabby Rivera

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A Conversation on Reopening with the Orchestra Director, Mr. Fleischman

By MANU BOSTEELS

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anu Bosteels ‘24: Could you give us an explanation of how you came up with a strategy to teach your orchestra online?

Mr. Jonathan Fleischman: When we closed in March, we had like a week to figure out, how to move things online, how to still create the best classroom experience we can, but just do it online. And we tried a lot of things, I know you weren’t with us in March, but I’m sure you had the same experience in your school; we tried one thing, and if it worked, great! We kept it, and if it didn’t, we tried something else.

And one advantage that I found was that it gave us an opportunity to pursue some things that we wouldn’t normally have the time to do. In a standard rehearsal, we spend 30-40 minutes in a block to really just work on music and we don’t necessarily have the time to do composition, improvisation, any of those kinds of things.

We don’t even really get to write or talk about anything, and now we were able to do that. And a lot of people, from what I heard, enjoyed it, and found it beneficial.

So when we went online in September, knowing that we wouldn’t have people in-person, I drew upon that, figuring out what worked back in the spring, and now that we had more time, I was able to change things around a little bit. We were able to create some activities where we could work on stuff that normally we wouldn’t get the time to do. I know that I try to focus on the fact that we were all starting online, there was no one in the room together, so as much group work and as much getting to know each other that we could do in those first couple weeks was a big priority as well.

MB: So how do you think that online education, specifically musical education, compares to physical, in-person teaching? From a feasibility perspective, can you actually teach a class effectively online, let alone a simultaneously virtual

and in-person class?

JF: I would say you could definitely teach music online. It’s done in many places, even more, I would say, in other parts of the world than the U.S. There are a lot of schools that are exclusively online, and they’re able to do it. I think the thing that makes it not so easy is the fact that we are trying to teach people in the room at the same time as trying to teach online. And it is doable, but what I’m realizing quickly is that it’s very difficult to be with one group of people and then another group of people and another; I know that one of the things that I am trying to do better is focus on seeing all the people at the same time. And I know that sounds like an impossible task, but it’s more that the people in the room are right in front of you, it’s very easy, you can see stuff instantly, you can hear when the note is wrong, you can see it when someone messes up a bowing, and it’s a little bit harder to see or hear that online. I also teach a couple students privately, and even when it’s one-on-one, it’s doable, but it’s a challenge to try to explain something to someone whereas you could just take your instrument right in front of them and you could demo it for them and they could be like “Oh, that’s how it works,” and it’s two seconds flat. It just takes a little more time. It is doable, but it presents its own unique challenges.

MB: Just last week, IHS started its hybrid schedule. On the first day, how difficult was it to find the appropriate balance between asking in-person students questions and keeping the virtual students engaged?

JF: Part of the learning curve, I will definitely say, was the fact that I was somewhat used to teaching online at that point—it was nice that you were kind of all in the same spot. Depending on whether or not people had cameras on, I could sometimes see people, or if not, at least I

could hear them, and see where that was going. So that was the first noticeable thing. I was talking to another teacher who used the analogy that it was similar to being a TV show host, or something like that, so it’s like, “and now, online we have” and, “now in-person we have”. You are trying to merge two groups that are not in the same location at the same time.

That was probably the toughest part, and over time, it got better and better. We had chamber orchestra today and it worked pretty well, and I will say that for your class [string orchestra], one of the things I tried to do, even on one of the first days, we had people working in the room and people working at home, so I tried to create that atmosphere of working together.

Of course, technology is what it is; sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

MB: From our perspective as students, the whole transition from virtual to in-person was somewhat chaotic; we only really got information a day before classes started. Was that the same on your end or did you have a bit more time to figure things out?

JF: Honestly, it was the same, you know, I would totally agree with you that, as teachers, we roll with the punches all the time, that’s what we do. That’s how our career works. But I do know that for me, personally, I am a planner. I like to have stuff set well in advance, and then you just act on it and it all works. And there were more than a couple occasions where I would make a plan, I would say that we’re gonna do something, and then I would have to change it. And there were a few times, I’m sure you remember this, where I would put info out to you folks, and then it would change or it would get clarified.

Then I would have to go back and change it. You know, it’s doable, it’s not like we were literally in the process of doing anything and then having to change it. But I would agree that it was a little bit chaotic.

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MB: You teach a music theory class in addition to the orchestras.

Is that kind of music class more difficult or easier to teach online than string orchestra?

MB: In terms of student engagement, do you think virtual classes have been successful; do you think that students are as involved in the work as they would be if everyone was in-person?

JF: From my perspective, I think it’s a little bit easier to teach online. Only because it functions a lot on what I would call pencil-paper or for us, if you were in the class, I could teach you something on the board behind me, people could ask me questions, and it translates a bit better to online material. Whereas playing an instrument—and it’s not just orchestra alone, it’s the same thing for band and choir—so much of it is “doing”, and so much of it is hearing, that obviously, with technology, whatever you have audio-wise or video-wise can limit you. If you’re doing something on pencil and paper, it’s a bit easier to transfer it over online. And there’s the fact that whenever you’re doing something with written work, you can just scan it and turn it in, and you can’t do that with sound. Of course you can record, and I’ve explored that a little bit, putting out recorded videos, as in like “lecture videos”, but I would say it’s a little bit easier on my end [with music theory classes].

JF: I think that’s highly dependent on on who you are. When we first went virtual in March, I tried to gather opinions as soon as possible about how the idea of doing school online makes you feel—does it make you feel excited? Some people love the idea of getting up from the couch, go to class, and then go back to the couch, for some people that works. I know for myself, I have to try very hard to have that whole work-life balance type thing. I found that when we were first at home in March, I was doing a lot more work than I really needed to. I think part of that was the fact that I didn’t have that whole, ‘school at school’ and ‘home at home’. Being at home made me feel like I wasn’t being as productive. And I think there’s those two sides of things for students, too. Everybody’s lives are different, and we don’t pretend to know what home life is like, but that makes a big difference. Whether you have an environment where you can study and it can be quiet for you, and you have good Internet—even a desk where you can sit. I think it’s highly dependent on everyone’s individual circumstances.

MB: How do you think classes will change this year? I’ve talked to a few people, and some of them foresee us all going in-person, regardless of choice, and others see us going back to fully virtual classes, I guess either because of cases or because not enough teachers want to teach in-person.

JF: Given everything that’s happened recently, if we did end up all-virtual, I don’t think it would end up on a teacher’s decision.

Right now, we have some teachers who are in-person, and are perfectly willing to be. Everybody’s life situations are different, both on students’ ends and our staff members’ ends, so it’s not my place or really anybody’s place to ask reasons for that decision, it’s a highly personal thing. But I don’t think it [returning to virtual classes] would be on the teachers’ end. If we did end up going back to all virtual, I think it would be due to a case count, we’re lucky in the fact that we haven’t had any yet. I would be lying if I said that I didn’t think that one day down the road, we would end up with a case or something like that. If that were to happen, we would have to follow district policy and we would have to quarantine or go virtual, wherever we are. One of the disadvantages that IHS has is that we are campus-based, so if we have one student or one staff member who comes down with a case, then that could affect the whole school. If we’re looking at the elementary level, they kind of stick to one classroom for the entire day. You can either quarantine that classroom or that wing of the school, whereas we’re kind of all-or-nothing. And that’s largely my reason I don’t think that we would all go back in person until it was extremely safe to do so. If that were the case, I think that would have been said a lot sooner, and given the fact that other districts, even though they vary in size, or location, up in the Syracuse area or even around here like the Lansing area or Trumansburg are doing similar plans, I think that’s part of why we picked this model. Just because, not that we’re just following other people, but if we see that something else is working, then we might as well follow suit. It depends a lot on how things happen. If we end up in a position where we have to go virtual for a while and shut down, then so be it. Maybe by the end of the year, depending on what medical advancements we make, we might go back [to school in-person]. But I don’t see it in the near future.

MB: If you had been the main administrator, specifically for Ithaca High School, how would you have designed the hybrid schedule?

JF: I can definitely say that the cohorts were the right way to go, with what science tells us. The fewer people you have together, the less the virus can spread. And this is nowhere near the same as today, but if you think about flu season, when fewer people were in the building, fewer people got sick. So I think of that, just on a much larger scale. I remember that I was wondering what was going to happen, since, going back to your earlier question, they took a while to explain the cohorts—I was thinking about how the split of the cohorts would work. And they ended up doing last name; purely for equitable purposes, it works out that the two cohorts are roughly the same size. I might have floated the idea of doing grade levels, as in a Red cohort of just freshmen and sophomores and a Gold cohort of just juniors and seniors.

And for a lot of teachers who teach individual grade levels, that might have made things easier or harder. I know for places like the music building, where we teach 9-12, and we have a large age range and class range of kids; string orchestra is open to 9-12, freshmen can be in there and seniors can be in there. So we do that every day, but it would have been interesting to have a freshmen and sophomore group day and an upperclassmen day. And that’s something that I would have considered exploring, but I think there’s no perfect answer. I, for one, am glad that I am not an administrator at this time. They have a really difficult job in that they have a lot of contrasting opinions that they are trying to find happy mediums between, and that’s not a position that I envy. But that’s the only thing I would look into. I really like the fact that we have [asynchronous] Wednesdays. I know that we were thinking of doing all five days, all virtual with no cohort option; that made us a bit nervous on the teachers’ side of things, just because we needed that day when we and you all could catch up. When you’re learning or teaching online, you can get bogged down quickly. So it’s nice to have a day where you can just work or talk to students when they need help and can get caught up.

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By adowyn ernste

THE BATTLE OF WITS!

Welcome one, welcome all, to this muchanticipated event, featuring the immense intellect of Leonard Ego,

Now, let the Battle of Wits commence!

and also Seymour Shmoop.

This first round will accurately determine which competitor has a bigger brain— by measuring the

e now, Do you seYou are peasant?r failure! fo destined

circumference of their heads!

Good thing Mega Nerd’s brain doesn’t match up to his head size—at least physically.

D I S Q U A L I F I E d !

ing hair FOR factor o the , MR. EGO is area int SEYMOUR FURTHERMOREHT TO CHOOSE ce, en er mf cu cir ficially granted THE RIG llenge! of is OP SHMO THE NEXT cha d from THE disqualifie D. FIRST ROUN

THIS IS an INJUSTICE! TYRANNY! I demand a new overseer for this competition!

Gahhh! ow?

Say

tN wha

ROUND 2: chess

BEGI

N! GO SEYMOUR! Remember your training!

Who’s destined for failure now, meganerd?

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ARTS

Troubled Blood: J.K. Rowling’s Prejudice Bleeds Through

By RAIA GUTMAN

P

ublished in September of this year, Troubled Blood is the fifth installment in the Cormoran Strike series, which renowned author J.K. Rowling has been writing since 2013.

J.K. Rowling, the wealthiest author in the world, is also perhaps one of the most controversial. After being accused of transphobia, most notably on Twitter, Rowling published a blog post explaining her views on trans activism and 21st century misogyny in June 2020. It outlined some very real concerns about women’s mental health in adolescence while simultaneously blaming trans activists for misinterpreting her concerns as bigotry. Rowling shares a fear with many critics of gender identity laws, especially the infamous bathroom bill; she seems to anticipate numbers of men masquerading as transgender women in order to take advantage of women’s spaces. This brings us to the self-identified gender critic’s latest novel, whose antagonist is one such man.

But first, a disclaimer is needed. I have not taken the initiative to read the other four books in the Strike series, nor watch the TV series, so my knowledge of the characters and any other background is limited. I will only summarize the first four sections of the book to avoid any spoilers. In addition, it is important to note that there are numerous mentions of rape and abduction in Troubled Blood, so if that is particularly troubling subject matter for you, I would not recommend you read it.

Handicapped veteran Cormoran Strike and partner at his detective agency Robin Ellacott are hired by the daughter of Margot Bamborough, a doctor and former “bunny girl” who has been missing for almost forty years at the time the novel takes place. The case was fumbled in 1974 by a detective who believed he could solve it using astrology and tarot, and his successor attempted six months later with no luck. Nevertheless, Margot’s daughter cannot rest until she knows her mother’s fate. Underlying the investigation are Strike and Robin’s problems with their estranged partners as Strike is repeatedly contacted by his miserable ex-fiancee and Robin endures a contentious divorce.

Both newly single and working closely in the agency, they try to ignore their mutual attraction despite the jealousy that surfaces throughout the story.

Strike’s personality and backstory resemble BBC’s Sherlock’s John Watson to a degree that may lead one to call it lazy writing.

Both were injured in Afghanistan, walk with a limp, and work as detectives. In addition, neither Strike, whose main attributes are his prosthetic leg, perpetual grimness, and memories of past lovers, nor Robin, are especially compelling or likable characters.

Chapters full of their internal monologues and lengthy transits across England are grueling. Rowling’s habit of virtue-signaling gay representation continues as several suspects are reported to be “queer,” and the author emphasizes the relationship between Bamborough’s daughter and her wife. It strikes a gay reader as something blatantly written by a cisgender, heterosexual author.

This behavior of Rowling’s was obvious in a tweet responding to critics telling her to “please talk to some queer people”—she pointed out that one of her best friends was a butch lesbian and reportedly affirmed her, as if that fact absolved her of bigotry.

The narrative jumps around oddly, from the first chapter extensively remarking on Cornish nationalism to frequent switches between characters’ inner speech that make the reader feel unacquainted with each protagonist at different times.

Despite J.K. Rowling’s several faux pas already evident in the first few sections of the novel, it is important to separate the quality of her writing from her political opinions. Her attention to the craft and highly developed style are evident. Rowling is masterful at building suspense, not only from one chapter to the next, but within dialogue. Her detectives flatter the self-congratulatory reader, who, with a healthy dose of hindsight bias, tells themself they would have deduced the same things. Rowling’s characters are flawed and therefore undeniably human—they forget birthdays, are subject to sudden mood changes upon receiving text messages, and struggle to navigate relationships with coworkers without seeming domineering. The dialogue between the main characters is magnetic, showcasing perfectly the relationship between two people who do not know each other intimately and yet occupy such a role in each other’s lives that their words and ideas flow smoothly between them. As their mutual attraction builds, the reader implores them to overcome their pride and admit their feelings, an effect every good romance novel produces. Dealing with death, trauma, and love, Troubled Blood is emotional and coherent throughout.

The aspect of the book that worried me most was Rowling’s clear agenda in framing the main suspect, serial killer and rapist Dennis Creed, as a crossdresser. The suspicion expressed by Rowling in her blog post, that predatory men will take advantage of potential gender recognition laws to attack women, is echoed in Creed’s profile. He dresses in drag, at first for fun at events, and then as a strategy to abduct, torture, and kill intoxicated, unsuspecting women. Through the depiction of this character, Rowling demonizes and casts suspicion upon all trans women.

Assuming that anyone would transition (a complete social and possibly hormonal upheaval) for any reason other than self-actualization is ignorant. It is disappointing to see such an influential artist promote a bigoted opinion in her work and easy to see how this representation could manipulate fans into falling in with transphobic rhetoric. After all, so many young people have come to associate her with the whimsical side of childhood.

Overall, Troubled Blood is not a success. Despite an intriguing plotline, the poorly written characters and manipulative agenda evident in Rowling’s latest novel diminish its appeal and reception by those critical of Rowling’s attitudes toward transgender people.

ARTS

27

The Power and Burden of Social Media: Lessons From Netflix’s The Social Dilemma

By RUBY LAROCCA

“Never before in history have fifty designers, all 20-35 year old white guys in California, made decisions that would have an impact on 2 billion people.” —Tristan Harris, Co-Founder of the Center for Human Technology

A

ll of the speakers featured in Netflix’s new documentary The Social Dilemma are tech industry leaders who have left their high-paying, high-profile jobs at Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube, among others, and have banned social media for their own children. Why? When asked directly what the problem is, the interviewees audibly gulped.

Tristan Harris, a former design ethicist at Google, now called “Silicon Valley’s conscience,” currently plays a significant part in the articulation of what he and others see leading us to the end of humanity. They see democracies crumbling, the tearing of our social fabric, and a fast-approaching point in time where technology “overwhelms human weakness.”

HOW SOCIAL MEDIA IS CHANGING US You might be thinking, How can posting a photo of my breakfast to Instagram pose an existential threat to humanity? Sure, it seems innocent enough. But what about that feeling when you don’t get enough Likes, not enough little doses of social approval? Chamath Palihapitiya—the CEO of venture capital firm Social Capital—characterizes this feeling as the “conflation of hearts, likes, and thumbs up with value and truth.” When self-worth is correlated with the unregulated input of others who are not thinking through the implications of their comments, people undergo a physical and mental change. Teenagers are especially susceptible.

Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist with NYU Stern, describes Gen-Z (or anyone who got on social media in middle school) as “a whole generation [that] is more anxious, more fragile, [and] more depressed.” In The Social Dilemma, Haidt presents us with some sickening statistics. According to the CDC, non-fatal self-harm rates for 10 to 14-year-old girls have gone up 189 percent since 2009, when social media became widespread and publicly available; suicide rates for the same demographic have increased by 151 percent. Social media platforms were “not designed by child psychologists who were trying to protect and nurture children” says Tristan Harris. Engineers “were just designing to make algorithms that were really good at recommending the next video to you.” Where children were once protected under various laws and socially accepted moral guidelines, the tech industry is now taking advantage of every weakness they see to exploit their psychology.

A popular saying around Silicon Valley is, “if you’re not paying for the product, then you are the product.” Actually, it’s not really you that is the product in this case, but your time and attention.

Jaron Lanier, the “founding father of virtual reality,” has a more nuanced way of looking at this phenomenon. He says, “It’s the gradual, slight, imperceptible change in your own behavior and perception that is the product.” Essentially, social media platforms are changing what we do, how we think, and who we are— for profit.

As the mathematician Cathy O’Neil says, “Algorithms are opinions embedded in code. Algorithms are not objective.” They are driven by the commercial interests of the company they are written for and the personal goal of the designer they are written by.

As they are used, they become smarter and more accurate at predicting your next search or figuring out what video is most likely to keep you online. And if that means propagating dangerous conspiracies and spreading fake news six times faster than true news, so be it. At the root of what we call political polarization, addiction, and populism is this ‘recommendation algorithm’ and the customization of the content we view.

The more inflamed, jealous, or sad the content you see makes you, the longer you stay online. The longer you stay online, the more advertisements you see. The more advertisements you see, the more money the advertiser makes. The more tech companies tailor content to specific users, the more there is a difference in what people see and the more polarized users become. The more polarized users are, the more varied their consuming activities and the products they buy. It is in the financial interest of the tech companies—who are making money from advertisers—to keep you online for as long as possible.

We are living through a pandemic and “people have no idea what’s true,” says Tristan Harris, “and now it’s a matter of life and death.” The danger comes from how our emotions and minds are subtly changed by the content we see; “It’s not about the technology being the existential threat,”continues Harris, “It’s the technology’s ability to bring out the worst in society and the worst in society being the existential threat.” The problems we face today are calamitous: the climate crisis, racial injustice, the current public health crisis, and the assault on global democracy. And yet all attempts to fix these problems are thwarted by the fact that we do not have a shared understanding of reality. As Harris points out, “If we can’t agree on what’s true, then we can’t navigate out of any of our problems.”

A NEW AGENDA FOR TECH How can we protect ourselves from manipulation and exploitation? How can we prevent the crumbling of democracies and societies under extreme political polarization and election hacking?

How can we protect minorities from being targeted by populist Continued on page 26

28

ARTS

The Power and Burden of Social Media: Lessons From Netflix’s The Social Dilemma Continued from page 25 groups weaponizing Facebook? How can we prevent children from being subject to the experimentation of “20-35 year old white guys in California”? How can we get back to the place where we have a shared understanding of reality? Keep in mind that people in the tech industry don’t give devices to their children.

And, you can follow Jonathan Haidt’s three rules: • All devices out of the bedroom at a fixed time every night • Work out a tech time budget with your family • No social media until high school, 16 being the recommended age

You can: • Turn off your notifications (anything that buzzes or dings) • Don’t simply accept what is recommended to you; always do your own search for content • Before you post, do a thorough fact-check and think through the implications of what you are saying • Don’t click on click-bait (it perpetuates the financial incentive for companies)

We must encourage the next generation—girls in particular— not to use social media before high school. Their rates of depression, anxiety and self-harm—brought on by myriad social pressures and unattainable expectations—have increased the most since the proliferation of social media out of any other demographic. As high schoolers, we are in the best position to influence and support those students. And, if you are strong enough, you can delete your social media accounts.

Sentimental Study Session Playlist

By RAIA GUTMAN

S

ome of us may prefer silence over study music, but a well-curated playlist can set the mood for focus and positivity. Listening to these songs while completing your busywork, brainstorming for an essay, or during a break between study sessions will take the edge off the drudgery that is homework.

Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy) - John Lennon “Beautiful Boy” is a sweet, relaxing song that’s perfect for the last assignment of the day, completed at eight or nine in the evening. Finish up a textbook reading while the easy pace of the song allows you to take in each concept in the chapter.

tomorrow morning while David Byrne sings to you.

Velvet Ring - Big Thief It’s nine or ten on a Saturday morning, and you’re still clad in pajamas while you read over study guides for the upcoming unit test. This is not cramming but an affirming, stress-free study session.

Cemetery Gates - 2017 Master - The Smiths With the mention of poets Keats and Yeats, “Cemetery Gates” is obviously a soundtrack for English homework, whether it’s creative writing or memorizing vocabulary.

Two Birds - Regina Spektor “Two Birds” is more of a study set-up song. Having a quiet, organized space available for studying is essential to your ability to focus. Clear off your desk, set distractions aside, and replenish your supply of sharpened pencils to Regina Spektor’s beautiful vocals.

Dinner & Diatribes - Hozier We all find ourselves in the midst of late-night study sessions sometimes, and though they may not be the best for our sleep schedules, they are the only option at times. Healthy snacks and lively music are your best friends when pulling near all-nighters.

The Big Country - 2005 Remaster Talking Heads A more upbeat song, “The Big Country” is suited to an assignment that requires energy and stamina. Punch out computations and scribble down numbers for that Chemistry problem set due

Lost in the Supermarket - Remastered - The Clash This particularly mellow, surfy Clash song is great for studying outside during the last few nice days of the year. Set down those color-coded biology notes next to yourself on a picnic table or lean

against a tree trunk while you study.

Ladies of Cambridge - Vampire Weekend In my opinion, “Ladies of Cambridge” should be in the background of every high-energy history assignment. It could be background music to John Green’s latest Crash Course video or your meticulous research on the causes of some major event. Once you’ve turned that in, turn your attention to your college search with Vampire Weekend’s song “Campus” as a soundtrack.

Apartment - Young the Giant Studying doesn’t always look like its traditional form, leaning over a textbook, scribbling notes. Sometimes you’re going over and over key terms and concepts in your head while you walk to school, coffee in hand. Or you’re leaning your head on the schoolbus window as you visualize the notes you took the previous night.

Oh My Captain - Rayland Baxter “O Captain! My Captain!” is a classic, just like the irreplicable vibe of sitting at your favorite cafe downtown, earbuds in, typing rapidly on a shiny computer.

Listen to the playlist here: https://open. spotify.com/playlist/4pPkMrrMhZkB4t169HIrcM

LITERARY

Submit your poetry, short stories, music, photos, and artwork for the Literary Issue!

Our January issue will be featuring the creative work of IHS students. Submit your work to editor@ihstattler. com. Prizes will be awarded to the best submissions! The deadline for submissions is Thursday, December 3.

29

30

LITERARY

Writing Prompts

By Adowyn Ernste • You wake up one morning to find that you cast not one shadow, but three.

• You’re raking leaves in the front yard only to find something buried beneath the leaf litter—something that shouldn’t be there...

• Simplify your favorite book or movie into the broadest terms possible, removing all possible details while retaining the basic form. Now, recreate the story and watch it unfold in a completely new way!

• Create a poem that starts and ends with the same line—but the line has greater significance and a new meaning the second time. Challenge yourself to write as concisely as possible.

• You’re inside a black hole, a swirling, dark void that not even light can escape. In the moments before your death, what do you experience?

• November 15 is National Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day. You’re reaching back into your fridge’s forbidden depths when you uncover something unexpected…

• In a startled flurry, a flock of 100 crows takes flight.

But there was nothing to provoke them—at least not

IMAGE BY ADOWYN ERNSTE

to the untrained eye...

• Listen to a piece of non-vocal music and create a story that exists behind the notes. Alternatively, listen to vocal music in a language that you don’t speak and imagine what is being said. For best results, choose music that you are familiar with and/or music that has a strong emotional atmosphere.

• Poetry form of the month: paradelle: Although originally invented as a joke, this challenging poetic form can be a lot of fun!

• There are four stanzas with six lines each.

• In the first three stanzas, the first and second lines are the same, and the third and fourth lines are the same. The fifth and sixth lines of each stanza contain only the words from the first and third lines and must contain all of these words.

• Lastly, the final stanza contains only and all of the words from the fifth and sixth lines from the first three stanzas.

• Write a story or poem using the following image as inspiration:

LITERARY

31

Pass It Along Column

By Tania Hao and Lindsay Wang There once was a person named Harold Norman. And he hated his name. It wasn’t that anyone picked on him for his name when he was younger, but every time he went in for an interview, people would be surprised to see he wasn’t the middle-aged white man his name implied he would be.

He couldn’t blame his parents for his name either. They had done him the benefit of choosing the more modern version of his name, even though they were centuries old. He didn’t know if he could have survived primary school with the name Hereweald.

Granted, humans were much more open to change now.

When his family and many like them had revealed themselves to the world, they hadn’t been shunned as they would have been a mere twenty years earlier. There were a few stares and whispers every now and again, but their community adjusted quickly and quietly, which Harold appreciated.

Of course, he should have known the acceptance wouldn’t last.

He had grown up in a small country town where everyone knew everyone and anything that happened got around town fast. But when he moved to New York for college, everything changed.

Though there were the massive crowds to hide in, there were so many people there, from so many different walks of life, that he couldn’t have expected acceptance from all of them.

Harold sighed, straightened his tie, and headed out for another interview. He hoped this one would be the last before he could settle down and have a normal life.

As he was getting a little desperate to find a job now—a couple decades of living in his parents’ dungeons were more than enough to make anyone wish to seek escape—Harold had recently applied for an interview at the local used Gucci™ store.

The advertisement for the job had only read: Required to have “Broke Boi Mentality” Harold did not understand this requirement, but as a very wise guru once said to him, “Fake it till you make it.” And so as he waited outside the tent in Central Park that was the local used Gucci store, he repeated this mentality to himself. Of course he was intimidated by the fellow interviewees, especially that one kid carrying 236 pickles, but nonetheless, he was going to get the job. There was no other option.

He stood in line, sweating profusely through his suit as he waited his turn for the interview. Having been at many, he knew this wasn’t how traditional interviews went, but he was desperate. For one thing, he rather enjoyed sunlight and fresh air, and he didn’t want to spend one more day in the damp dungeon that smelled of decay.

There was a commotion up ahead and Harold squinted at the tent. The teenager with all the pickles had dropped them all over the grass, and the woman hosting the interviews did not look amused. As soon as the kid picked up his pickles and stuffed them in his bag, she sent him packing.

The pickles weren’t the only thing that caught Harold’s eye, though. As the embarrassed kid fished his bag out of his pocket, something else peeked out—something that glittered turquoise in the afternoon sunlight.

Dropping his briefcase, Harold broke out into a run after the teenager.

You might be wondering, if Harold was so desperate to get a job, why abandon his last chance? Well, the reason is quite simple—after all, it is the same reason he was living in his parent’s basement in the first place; he simply could not help himself.

Harold despised the color turquoise with a passion. Rather than calm him down like the color would for others of his species, he would be sent into a rage that made him see turquoise.

And thus he charged after the teenager, blood roaring in his ears. He didn’t just despise turquoise. Every time he saw any hint of that color, all he could think of was what happened that night he lost everything.

He’d been doing a lot better recently, too, with his anger. The only reason he’d been staying with his parents for the past fifty years was because the Council thought he was too dangerous to be free. What they didn’t know was that though he was still seething, he was also hurting and healing. He definitely regretted what he’d done when he was younger.

Harold slowed down, clutching his stomach and leaning against a tree. The teenager with the turquoise thing in his pocket had disappeared, and he took a deep breath. He could not fail this time.

He felt this strange desperation take hold of him and as he took in another deep breath it dawned on him that he only had one option left. Harold would have to revisit his mindscape to find the missing memories of his Tragic Backstory™. Only they held the answers to the retrieval of the stone. After all, everyone in the community knew that it was his mission that successfully retrieved the stone for the first time, but also where everything went wrong.

The Pass It Along Column is a collaborative, ongoing column featuring new writers each month. If you’re interested in contributing to the next segment of the story, email literary@ ihstattler.com or come to the next Tattler Writers’ Meeting!

32

LITERARY

Raw Sun Denim, The Beauty in the Mundane and Ignored

By Simon Cohen I awake.

I face my window. Its worn, wooden frame is slightly ajar to let in the cool morning air.

I take a deep breath. The dewy air fills my lungs with the scents of pine and soaked wood.

I turn to my window. I face the sun and feel its gentle glow on my face and body.

The morning dew shimmers like hundreds of eyes shedding tears of joy.

I gently rise and slip out of bed. The soft sheets caress my body, newly reborn from the womb of my resting place.

My feet softly slip into the thousands of little fibers on my rug. They gently graze and warm me.

I slowly stretch. I stretch and strain my tight body as it reawakens like an ancient scroll being unrolled and seeing the sun after centuries.

I walk to the bathroom. I step out of my room into a silent home filled with the light of a sun only a select few see. I feel as though I am a being not of this earth.

I step into the bathroom. The cold stone floor is almost startling to my newborn senses.

I shower. The scents of lavender and citruses fill my nostrils as hot water hits my body like harsh gusts of wind on an empty plain.

I dry. I drag a soft towel over my skin. It smells sweet, and feels like a soft cotton candy that could melt into pools of sugar at any moment.

I change. I put on a worn-in shirt. I feel its softness and its age as it sheathes my torso.

I slip on my raw denim. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fabric is faded and old, but soft and malleable. Its age carries beauty and history like nothing else.

My raw denim has seen more than I will in the rest of my life. Like a sun one sees every day, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s only when one ponders the existence of such things, things that were here before us and might one day outlast us.

Things that have been tools of individuals before us and now serve our needs as human beings.

Only when we ponder the things that we use every day do we realize their value.

When we ponder the existence of an eternal being like the sun, or the age and wear of an old pair of raw denim, do we see the beauty in the mundane.

I weep.

Broken Heart, Heartbroken

By Louisa Miller-Out Dust to ash and ash to dust Rust to heart and heart to rust Lust to lies and lies to lust Must you go? Yes, go you must

Time and tears and tears and time Crime is love and love is crime One for all and all for one Won, have I? Yes, I have won

LITERARY

Ode to Hybrid Learning

By Raia Gutman Thanks to you, streetlamp, I see the yellows and reds of autumn.

On my way to school, the halls are quiet But for the buckling, cracking of stairs under my feet Fifteen, twenty-five steps from my bedroom, The classroom.

I hover over Wednesdays like a spirit, doomed to forget And remember that I’ve forgotten.

I won’t see human skin in vivid detail until Monday, And even then, The numbers on the door have shifted by one or two.

G216 is in the basement with the drowned snails, Piled on top of one another like pebbles.

To mistake shells for stones, Students for passive vessels of germ and disease.

The clock, paused since March, ticks again, Rewinding to account for lost time and operating at double speed.

But the tiles have been rearranged while I spent those months blinking, Blinking, My eyelids growing soggy and cancerous, Bulging down onto my hollow cheeks.

It won’t be long till I shrink small enough to slide my legs under my dresser and find that the wall behind gives way; I slide, slick with soap, suds trailing me, Down the right side of the hallway.

I imagine the school will be demolished one day, its few Wooden furnishings returned to the earth.

I will come to see it off, watch the dust settle, The cemetery above casting ashes down on its remains.

33

Ode to the Dot above the “i”

By Anna Westwig You lonesome ellipsis, the alphabet’s first foundling, gape like opened veins in grey water. You afterthought, you dreaming balloon, scatter like radiation on the page.

The transcriber pauses on you like a trauma, battered onto trackless lacunae in the record, his pen welling out sickness until you are illegible, and therefore, unloveable. Children throw you about, you are dangled on the balls of your feet through the contours of a teacher’s cursive exercise.

“Remember, remember,” they crow and yet heaped at their shiny boots, you are nothing but a distinction.

Long ago, little firefly, you bobbed in impenetrable thickets of rasping tongues, ink-clotted manuscripts, now left to look down at the twenty-six seething waves beneath you.

What are you now? What calling draws you up so high?

Why have you not fallen like a needle through the sea And stitched the alphabet with your absence?

You were a smattering of eclipses in dappled light, and immortality suits you, useless thing. You flicker From crescent to flame, dot to heart, eluding extinction like a simile.

Palindrome of the Oppressed

By Louisa Miller-Out Incited dreams, And hopes and schemes United, we won today No retreat, Fight, no defeat Ignite us and blow them away.

Away them blow and us ignite Defeat? No Retreat? No, fight.

Today won we, united.

Schemes and Hopes and Dreams incited.

34

LITERARY

Crooked

By Sam Sachs Does the moon look the same from any angle that you look?

It’s a curious thought.

Does the moon in the night even think to look good?

It’s possible.

These are questions I ponder, that I think to myself While my crooked little head stares at the crooked little poster hanging awkwardly on my little shelf.

And each time I do, I find it important to consider that the Moon can’t even think for itself.

And therefore: to ask these bold Interrogations of a fellow unable to make a mere consideration, seems to me to be unjust. ... (or at least doesn’t help).

Then of course, there is the theory that the moon can see and hear me, one I’ve always found to be quite odd.

Because just maybe, possibly, in this moment I stare thoughtfully, the moon is staring right back down from space.

And it thinks to itself how the little kid it’s seeing is a little crooked too, on his little crooked planet, while looking up, thinking what the moon is doing from his crooked, tiny, human, little place.

Haiku

Haiku

By Sam Sachs

By Sam Sachs

Tip of the iceberg: Sets you down a path, or just Makes your ship go sink

When all else will fail, Some lobster ravioli Always wins the day

Haiku

By Sam Sachs If you’re high enough It doesn’t hurt when you fall You just keep falling

PENULTIMATE

35

Surrealio

By Ethan Carlson

November Sudoku 3

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October Solution

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The Coolness Spectrum What’s Your Favorite Drink? Perhaps This Horoscope Knows!

Cool Fall back daylight’s savings Clearance Halloween candy

By Ethan Carlson Scorpio (Oct 23 - Nov 21): Tea: You are diligent and reserved; you drink it because it’s cool, not because you need it.

Sagittarius (Nov 22 - Dec 21): Orange Juice: Despite its acidity level of 3.5, you’re quite basic.

Capricorn (Dec 22 - Jan 19): Coffee With Milk: You decided to start drinking it because your parents had so much left over. At first you hated the taste, but you quickly began to ignore that as your addiction to caffeine took over.

Aquarius (Jan 20 - Feb 18): Mountain Dew: It tastes terrible, but there are so many memes about it that you can’t help yourself.

Pisces (Feb 19 - Mar 20): Milk (or your preferred substitute): It tastes good, it has good nutrients, end of story.

Aries (Mar 21 - Apr 19): Water: You think you’re sooo smart.

Taurus (Apr 20 - May 20): Whole Milk: Every other type of milk is just water!

Gemini (May 21 - June 20): Red Bull: The ads were so vague, that you didn’t even know it was an energy drink at first.

Cancer (June 21 - Jul 22): Smoothie: You like fruit, but the peels drive you insane.

Uncool Turkey shortages Virtual Thanksgiving Eyes on fire just like California The election

Leo (Jul 23 - Aug 22): Carbonated Water: You think you’re sooooooooooooo smart.

Seasonal depression (on top of every other depression)

Virgo (Aug 23 - Sep 22): Melted Ice Cream: That’s not even a drink.

College apps

Libra (Sep 23 - Oct 22): Plain Coffee: You have a weird sense of taste.

Rising COVID-cases

Uncooler